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AN 
INTRODUCTION 
TO PHILOSOPHY 


BY 
EDGAR SHEFFIELD BRIGHTMAN 


BORDEN PARKER BOWNE PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
IN BOSTON UNIVERSITY 





: NEW YORK 
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 





CoPYRIGHT, 1925, 
BY 
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY. 


PRINTED IN 
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


DEDICATED 
TO 
MY MOTHER 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


https://archive.org/details/introductiontophOObrig_0 


PREFACE 


Tuts book is an introduction to philosophy. It presup- 
poses no prior acquaintance with the subject and is intended 
either for the student or the general reader. The author 
has undertaken to present fairly what may be said for and 
against the solutions of the chief problems offered by the 
important schools of philosophical thought. He has also 
sought to interpret his own point of view, which may be 
called personalism or personalistic idealism. 

Since the book is an introduction it is not a complete 
system of metaphysics. Many topics that are in the public 
eye are therefore treated briefly or not at all. Current dis- 
cussion of space and time is highly technical and is in a 
state of transition. Little is said of those topics in this book. 
Relativity and Einstein are barely mentioned; Freud, only 
incidentally; the important theory of quanta and the much 
discussed theories about glands, not at all. Such topics are 
better not undertaken until one is fairly familiar with the 
lay of the land in philosophy through such a survey as is 
found in the following pages. 

The teacher who uses this Introduction as a text-book 
will probably find that if it be made the basis of a course 
for a single semester, some of the chapters will have to be 
omitted or cursorily treated. The book is best adapted to 
be used as the basis for two semesters’ work, the first se- 
mester being “Introduction to Philosophy,” and the second 
being perhaps its continuation, or perhaps a separate course 
called “Metaphysics” or ‘Problems of Philosophy.” The 


v 


vi PREFACE 


introductory treatment of the text may then be supplemented 
by extensive outside readings selected from the bibliography 
or from other sources. 

The author expects and desires criticism, not only “con- 
structive” but also “destructive.” Much of this criticism 
will doubtless be deserved. The author is under no illusion 
of infallibility. It is, however, to be feared that some of 
the criticism will arise from the fact that personalism hap- 
pens not to be in fashion at the moment. There are critics 
who will welcome any philosophy, no matter how extrav- 
agant, provided it does not eventuate in theism; and will 
reject, without careful examination, any philosophy, no 
matter how reasonable, if it be inclined to find some truth 
in religion. Other critics have a similar animus against 
anything that calls itself idealism. Matters have come to 
such a pass that the idealism of Plato finds entrance into 
philosophically élite circles only when called realism. Some 
contemporary idealists seek refuge under other banners, such 
as “spiritualistic pluralism” or “personal realism.” Names 
mean little, fashions even less. Only the truth counts. 
Not label or fad, but rational thought is the sole arbiter of 
truth recognized by philosophy. If this book leads its read- 
ers to examine current fashions of opinion with calm, coher- 
ent thought, it will have accomplished an important part 
of its mission. 

It would be a delightful task, but impossible, to thank 
all who have encouraged and helped the author in writing 
the book. The list of such would include former teachers, 
colleagues at Boston University and other institutions, stu- 
dents, stenographers, and others. Special thanks are due to 
Professor Mary W. Calkins and Professor Albert C. Knud- 
son for suggestions based on a reading of the manuscript as 


PREFACE vii 


a whole; to Dean William M. Warren, Professor Norton A. 
Kent, and Professor William G. Aurelio for criticisms of 
certain chapters; and to my wife and my mother for their 
constant helpfulness throughout the writing of the book. 


E. S. B. 


NEWTON CENTER, MASSACHUSETTS, 
August 26, 1924. 


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TABLE OF CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 
J. THE PHILOSOPHICAL SPIRIT 
§ 1. Philosophy Exists : 
§ 2. Philosophical Terminology Is Difficult : 
§ 3. The Problem of Philosophy 


HU B&W W 


84. The Limits of Philosophy... 
§ 5. Philosophy as a Spirit or Method .. 
§6. The Philosophical Spirit Is Not Absence of 
Thought . : : 8 
§ 7. Not All Thought Is Philosophical 8 
§ 8. The Philosophical Spirit Distinguished from the 
Scientific : : 9 
89. The Perils of the Philosophical Spirit Hh Ene MW ES © 
sito, Value ofthe Piilosophical Spirit) v4 Win jaunt) 4m 18 
§ 11. Philosophical Methods . BR et 22 
§ 12. What We May Expect from Philosophy . ari tiaie S20 
» II. How Can WE DistTINGuIsH TRUTH _FROM ERROR? 
§ 1. Sketch of the Development of me Se SS ARO Bi Tai Ay 
§2. The Meaning of Truth... NOVI Ae MK At Aber Ne 
Bree Letinch as: Criperion,..) ui eRe oe” head i 26 
§ 4. Custom as Criterion : : 4 é ‘ Ste aie ty 
SeesuebTadinion (AS: CLItEriON jyci Mt ais Mah ean teen 38 
SEO MUL LOMSCIISUS CICTIELUME A ve) SE Oe edie a 
§ 7. Feeling as Criterion. . RESO MEU NL te 
§ 8. Sense Experience as Criterion a VeD Ey oats Homarie AD 
OTA UUs Ge ae GTIteTiON Ny) oe Atte at. Nese One nan AO 
Sera AcOrresponcence as. Criterion a0) ae ed em AO 
Sir. Practical Consequences as Criterion .  . §. §0 
Bir2 ss Gouercnce as: Criterior Wy, isa cer Pen inow le neg s SO 
. SII. How Do Our Ipras REFER To REALITY? 
§1. The Problem of basa : ERE Oe he 7 
§ 2. Skepticism : BRU ia ae bse ge\ OG 
§ 3. “Kantian” Subjectivism Ava let Sl IY aay Be 
§ 4. Epistemological Monism Berd Yep | hw DANG TUT NP 
§ 5s. Epistemological Dualism . at ety tet 2s 
§ 6. Difficulties in Epistemological Dualism . . 80 


ix 


x 


CHAPTER 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 


. Arguments for Epistemological Dualism 
. The Objective Reference of Thought . 
. The Categories : 4 
. Transition to the Following Chapter 


IV. Wuat ARE PHYSICAL THINGS? 


. The Place of the Chapter in the Book as a Whole 


Physical Things as Starting Point of Metaphysics 
Method of Investigation . 

Physical Things As They Are for Naive Realism 
Physical T hings As They Are for Science 
Physical Things As They Are for Philosophy 
Conclusions About the Nature of Physical Things 


. On Abstraction . 
. Definition of Terms . 
. Why Should Universals and Values Be Studied To- 


gether? s 
Are Universals Real? ; : 
Relations of Universal and Particular ; 
Problems About Value LR 
Psychology of Valuation . 
What Do We Value? : 
What Is the Standard of Value? 
Classification of Values 


. Interpenetration of the Values 

. Value and Existence 

. Are Values Subjective or Objective? 
. Value and Personalism : 


VI. Wuat Is CoNScIOUSNESS? 


. Introductory 
. How Should Consciousness Be Studied? 


Advantages of an Historical Po oe to the 
Problem : 4 : ; 

Primitive Belief in the Soul : 

More Developed Theories of the Soul. . 

Associationistic Theories of Consciousness (Struc- 
tural or Analytic) 

Functional Theories 

Behaviorism 

Self-psychology (Personalistic Psychology) . 


CHAPTER 


§ 10. 
Tt « 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 


The Mind-Body Problem 4 
Is Personality an fear tbrae Philosophical Princi- 


ple? 


“VII, Tue Curer PumosopHicaAL Worip VIEWS 


§ 1. Introductory . 
§ 2. On What Do All World Views Agree? . 
§ 3. On What Most Tea Points Do World 
Views Disagree? 
§ 4. Is a World View Possible? . 
§ 5. Is the World to Be Viewed as One or as Many? 
§ 6. Is the World all of One Kind of Being, or Is It 
of Two or More Different Kinds? . j 
§ 7. Is the World Friendly or Indifferent to the High: 
est Values? . ‘ 
§ 8. Summary: The Fundamental Issues . 
§9. Realism 
§ 10. Idealism . 
VIII. Is tHE WortpD A MaAcHINE? 
$1. The Fundamental Problem of Heep ae 
Mechanism vs. Teleology : 
§ 2. What Are a Mechanism and an Organism? 
§ 3. Man’s Attempts to Explain His World : 
§ 4. The Truth and Value of Mechanistic Explana- 
tion. : 
§s5. The Limitations of Mechanistic Explanation : 
§ 6. Transition to Next Chapter Wiwate 


IX. Has tHe WoriLpD A PURPOSE? 


Sue 


A Restatement of the Problem of Mechanism 
and Teleology 


. The Teleological Facts . 

. Objections to Teleology . 

_ Review of the Possible Solutions of the Problem 
. Purpose as Conscious or Unconscious . 

. The Place of Mechanism in a Teleological Uni- 


verse 


§ 7. The Relation of Teleology to the Problems of 


Philosophy 


X. Wuat [s THE PLACE OF RELIGIOUS VALUES IN LIFE? 
§ 1. Philosophy Includes the emer of All 


Values 


xi 
PAGE 
201 


207 


212 
212 


218 
215 
216 


220 


224 
229 
231 
236 


249 
251 
253 


257 
259 
279 


281 
281 
290 
304 
307 


309 
313 


315 = 


xii TABLE OF CONTENTS 
CHAPTER 
$2. Religion Chosen for Special Investigation 
§ 3. Definition of Religion . 
§ 4. The Fundamental Problems of Religion 
$5. God and Physical Nature ae 
8 6. God and Finite Persons . 
§ 7. Immortality : 
§ 8. The Future of Religion 


XI. Wuat Is THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF PHILOSOPHY? 

§ 1. Retrospect and Prospect f 
§ 2. What Is Meant by “Practical Value”? 
§ 3. The Practical Peril of Dogmatism 

«8 4. The Practical Peril of Subjectivism 
$5. The Ideal} vs; the Reali.) 10 
$6. The Value of Philosophy for Life . 
$7. The Practical Value of Personalism 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


LEXICON. : 4 i A . x , Q : 


AN INTRODUCTION 
TO PHILOSOPHY 


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CHAPTER I 


THE PHILOSOPHICAL SPIRIT 


SI. PHILOSOPHY EXISTS 


It is no simple matter to define philosophy. One thing, 
however, is certain; namely, that there is such a thing as 
philosophy. Every library of any consequence has books 
dealing with it; colleges and universities have departments 
and professors of it; the names of philosophers are in- 
scribed on public buildings and memorial tablets; and his- 
tory records the influence of philosophers on human affairs. 
Where there is so much smoke, there must be some fire. 
Philosophizing is beyond question a real activity of the 
human mind. 


§ 2. PHILOSOPHICAL TERMINOLOGY IS 
DIFFICULT 


It is equally certain that many terms used by men who 
are considered to be, or consider themselves to be, philoso- 
phers are all but meaningless to the average person of in- 
telligence. Nietzsche once said that man is to superman as 
the ape is to man, either a joke or a sore shame. Many 
thoughtful men and women have, it must be admitted, found 
in the writings of philosophers no more than a joke or a 
sore shame. 

Many philosophers have indeed failed to be either inter- 
esting, or clear, or convincing. Much of the evil repute of 


philosophy is due to the philosophers themselves. If you 
3 


4 THE PHELOS OR RO At yer ie 


read Spinoza, or Schopenhauer, or John Stuart Mill, or Berg- 
son, or James, or Bowne, you know what they mean; or at 
least, if you do not, you have to admit that it is your fault, 
not the philosophers’. But if you read Plotinus, or Kant, 
or Fichte, or Hegel, or many contemporary writers, you 
have to struggle through a barrage of jargon before you 
can begin to penetrate their positions. Their terminology 
is much more cumbersome than it need be. There is, as 
Berkeley says, “a great number of dark and ambiguous 
terms.” 

Yet, objections to the literary form of philosophical writ- 
ing are only superficial. They are much the same as the 
objections that a European makes to Chinese food; or that 
a dyed-in-the-wool conservative makes to change: namely, 
that he is not used to it. The real trouble with philosophy 
is not a matter of words. The calculus cannot be put in 
words of one syllable; all rigorous thinking demands a 
technical vocabulary. 


§ 3. THE PRORLEM OF PHILOSOPHY 


The difficulty about philosophy, then, arises not alone 
from the language that philosophers use, but from the very 
nature of what philosophy is. Philosophy may be defined 
as the attempt to think truly about human experience as a 
whole; or to make our whole experience intelligible. The 
world is its parish. Everything in the universe, which 
in any way enters into human experience, or affects, or 
is known by human beings, is of interest to philosophy. 
Now the universe is inexhaustible. Any fact in it may be 
studied from many different points of view; new facts have 
a way of cropping up every second; the understanding of 
any fact involves our taking into account its relations to all 


THE, LIMILS) ORV PHILOSOPHY 5 


other facts. A very superficial survey of our experience 
would thus suggest that philosophy, like woman’s work, 
is never done. If philosophy is difficult, it is not wholly 
the philosopher’s fault. It is partly the fault of the uni- 
verse. We live in a difficult world. Experience has many 
sides, many problems, many possibilities. The philosopher 
doesn’t make the universe or its difficulties. He simply 
tries to understand it; he is, as the Greek word”* says, a 
lover of wisdom. 


§ 4. THE LIMITS OF PHILOSOPHY 


At the outset of a book on philosophy, it is well to be 
entirely frank; and to admit that—philosopher or no phi- 
losopher—none is wise enough to tell what wisdom absolute 
may be; or fully to understand what experience as a whole 
really means. No philosopher or philosophical system has 
ever comprehended the perfect round of truth. But this 
is no reason to turn away from philosophy; on the contrary, 
it is one of the secrets of its charm. No one can draw a 
mathematically straight line. Should we therefore give up 
every effort to draw lines as straight as possible? Is not a 
relatively straight line, such as we can draw with a ruler, 
far better for human purposes than lawless irregular scrawls? 
No one can know completely what goes on in the mind of 
any other person. Should we then cease to trust and love 
human beings? Every human venture is made within the 
limits of the finite and imperfect; yet every human venture 
adds in some way, for good or ill, to our knowledge of our- 
selves and the world we live in. 

He then who undertakes to think about the meaning of 
human experience has started on an endless task, a task 


1 Philosopher, ¢:Adcogoc, a lover of wisdom. 


6 THE PHILOSOPHICAL SPIRIT 


for an immortal spirit (if such there be); a task every 
moment of which has its perils and its zest, its despair and 
its hope. If one desires an easy, vegetable existence, it is 
doubtless better to abstain (as much as possible) from 
thinking, and to enter the whole of philosophy on the Index 
Expurgatorius. But if one aspires to truth, or goodness, or 
beauty, one must think. Such are the wonder and curiosity 
of the mind that it is only by extirpating whole areas of 
human nature, that is by spiritual suicide, that one can live 
without thinking about problems which are essentially phil- 
osophical. 

Indeed, we might go further and say that every human 
being has a philosophy, such as it is; for every one enter- 
tains some opinions about the meaning—or meaningless- 
ness—of his experience. It would be over-flattering to say 
that every one is more or less of a philosopher; for there 
is a great gulf fixed between the holding of philosophical 
Opinions and the genuine philosophical spirit which holds no 
opinion that it has not earned a right to hold by intellectual 
work. Nevertheless the unreasoned opinions of crude pop- 
ular dogmatism, as well as the thoughtful conclusions of the 
skilled reasoner, are a tribute to what Schopenhauer has 
called ‘““Man’s need of metaphysics,”’ and tend to prove the 
point, that, while all human philosophy is imperfect, human 
nature obstinately refuses to abandon the philosophical quest 
for truth. The imperfection of our system cannot quench 
the philosophical spirit. 


§ 5. PHILOSOPHY AS A SPIRIT OR METHOD 


It is clear from what has been said that philosophy does 
not consist in the holding of a certain set of opinions, or 
even in the possession of a certain body of knowledge. Every 


PHLLOS OPW RAS PAYS POUR LTD 7 


philosopher will, it is true, have some opinion; and some 
knowledge is a necessary prerequisite to any philosophical 
thinking: but neither the opinion nor the knowledge is 
philosophy. Philosophy is essentially a spirit or method 
of approaching experience, rather than a body of conclusions 
about experience. This statement should not be taken to 
mean that it makes no difference what one’s conclusions 
are, as long as one has the right spirit, for one’s philosophical 
conclusions are of very great moment, both theoretically and 
practically. It means rather that opinions, even true opin- 
ions, without a reasoned understanding of what they mean 
and why we hold them, are below the level of philosophical 
thought. A parrot might repeat a series of philosophical 
truths; but a parrot philosopher does not exist. 

The philosopher, of course, aims at true conclusions, as 
the mountain-climber aims to reach the mountain top. Like 
the mountain-climber, also, the philosopher searches for 
the way to the top—a way that leads from the valleys and 
lowlands of every-day experience to a view of the whole 
landscape. He who holds his opinions without knowing or 
caring why is like one who has been transported to the 
mountain-top in an aeroplane, and left there alone. He is 
surrounded by clouds; he does not know whether he is 
awake or dreaming; he knows neither where he is nor the 
way to anywhere else. The worst service that can be done 
to the mountain-top is for such a befuddled visitant to extol 
its beauties. Likewise, angels weep when they hear divine 
truth proclaimed by one who has never thought his way up 
to the heights where the truth dwells. 


8 THE PP HDLO SOP ER GAt worbaton ied 


§6. THE PHILOSOPHICAL SPIRIT IS NOT 
ABSENCE OF THOUGHT 


It is very difficult to give a precise and self-explanatory 
definition of this philosophical spirit with which we are con- 
cerned. It is perhaps easier to tell what it is not than to 
tell what it is. We may begin by saying that the spirit of 
philosophy is absent where there is no serious attempt to 
ask what things mean; where things are taken for granted 
without being understood; where events are left separate 
and loose, as mere brute facts, instead of being correlated 
and interpreted. Random observation, disconnected ideas, 
unquestioning belief and unquestioning doubt,—all these are 
evidently unphilosophical. 


§7. NOT ALL THOUGHT IS PHILOSOPHICAL 


The philosophical spirit is also frequently absent where 
there is a connected system of ideas. The mentally unbal- 
anced are often victims of systematized delusions about the 
nature of reality; G. K. Chesterton has said that the insane 
are the only truly logical beings. Subjects of post-hypnotic 
suggestion are able to create quasi-logical “reasons” for their 
extraordinary behavior; religious fanatics and extremists 
find grounds for the most untenable of beliefs. The seeker 
for truth should remember that not all correlation of ideas 
is philosophy, that not every appeal to reason is reasonable. 
There are spirits having the form, but lacking the power, of 
rationality; of such beware. 

One of the perils of the philosopher is what psychologists 
call “rationalization.” Rationalization is the process of 
constructing a system of ideas, the real function of which 
is to justify some preéxisting desire or belief, without any 


PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE 9 


attempt objectively to examine that desire or belief with 
reference to its truth. It is the opinion of some writers 
that much, if not most, human thinking has been of this 
sort. John Dewey, for example, holds that substantially the 
entire history of philosophy from Plato on has been such 
rationalization in support of preéxisting moral and religious 
beliefs... Robinson’ has given popular expression to this 
view. 

Every thoughtful person is conscious of how profoundly he 
is influenced by desires and beliefs originating in his physical 
organism or his early training. Rationalization of these de- 
sires and beliefs is a subtle foe to the philosophical spirit; 
but men like Dewey and Robinson appear to overlook the 
fact that wholesale rejection is just as undiscriminating as 
wholesale acceptance. Rationalization of our desires is cer- 
tainly not worse than rationalization of our antipathies; and 
many are falling prey to the latter. The philosophical spirit 
should shun all mere rationalization, and should examine not 
all our beliefs alone, but also their hidden foundations in 
the light of experience as a whole. A belief that survives 
this test is a belief worth having. 


§ 8. THE PHILOSOPHICAL SPIRIT DISTIN- 
GUISHED FROM THE SCIENTIFIC 


Whatever, then, is thoughtless or unreasonable or is mere 
rationalization is unphilosophical; but it does not follow 
from this that all that is thoughtful and truly reasonable is 
philosophical. Science is not identical with philosophy; and 
the scientific spirit is in some respects to be distinguished 
from the philosophical. Science and philosophy are alike 


1Cf. Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy. Chapter I. 
2 The Mind in the Making, p. 41. 


10 THE PHILOS OPERAS Paka 


in that each, animated by an impartial love of truth, seeks to 
understand experience intellectually. But their differences 
are important. The sciences specialize; they deal with 
restricted fields of human experience, such as matter and 
motion, chemical changes, or the phenomena of life. Phi- 
losophy is inclusive; it aims to interpret what is common 
to all fields, and to understand the relations of the special 
sciences to each other. Science is analytic; its laws are 
statements about the relations of the parts which analysis 
has revealed. Philosophy is synoptic; it does not omit 
the necessary work of analysis and synthesis, but it lays 
stress on the properties which experience taken as a whole 
reveals." Hence science has often been said to deal with 
phenomena (things as they appear in our experience), phi- 
losophy with noumena (things as they really are for valid 
thought). 

Science starts with the assumption made by “common 
sense,” that there is a world of real space, real time, and real 
matter; that we have minds which are conscious of this 
world through our senses and reflection on sense data, and 
_ that all these things truly are as they appear to be. So 
evident does this seem to “the man on the street” (who fig- 
ures largely in philosophical discussion) that when he hears 
of philosophy’s raising questions about these matters, 
he is confused and inclined to be impatient. Science begins 
where common sense begins, and does not, like philosophy, 
make a business of criticizing the assumptions of every-day 
life with reference to their meaning for experience as a 
whole. 


1 The fact that wholes have properties that their parts do not have is 
one of the most important facts about our world, and philosophy’s deepest 
interest is in this fact. Professor Spaulding, a protagonist of analysis, 
admits the fact, but characterizes it as non-rational (Holt and others, 
The New Realism, page 241). See § 11, (2) below. 


PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE 11 


It is however noteworthy that the world which science 
comes to describe is very different from the world present to 
our senses. Physics, for example, talks about matter,—but 
this matter is not said to be colored, or sounding, or sweet 
or sour; only the so-called primary qualities (of mass and 
motion) belong to the matter itself, whereas the secondary 
qualities (of color, brightness, sound, taste, etc.) exist only 
in our consciousness as the result of the action of the pri- 
mary qualities. Thus science moves fast and far from the 
opinions of crude common sense; yet not so fast nor so far 
as philosophy! For science modifies common sense only in 
so far as the demands of investigation in some special field 
compel such modification; while philosophy challenges at 
the outset the assumptions of the sciences in order to find 
out whether they are true in the light of experience as a 
whole. That is to say, philosophy is critical ? in a sense in 
which science is not; it is (to borrow Bradley’s illuminating 
usage) skeptical in that it aims “to become aware of and 
to doubt all preconceptions’’;* not that the mood of doubt 
is the final mood of philosophy, but that he who has never 
doubted has never crossed the threshold of philosophy’s 
dwelling-place. 

Science, furthermore, is chiefly (and many believe, wholly ) 
a description of the laws of phenomena. These laws are, 
for the most part, causal and mathematical. They are in 
form: if A, then B; if sodium and chlorine combine under 
proper conditions, then common salt is formed. Pure sci- 
ence ignores every consideration of value. It is true that 
common salt, for instance, is of value to man, and that 


1 The distinction between primary and secondary qualities was popular- 
ized in philosophy by John Locke. 

2 The terms criticism, critical, and especially critique are used tech- 
nically in philosophy, under the influence of Kant’s Critique. 

8F, H. Bradley, Appearance and Reality, p. xii. 


12 THE) PHITOSORRTCAL( SPIRIT 


the results of science have transformed civilization in many 
of its aspects. Nevertheless, it is also true that no consid- 
eration of value enters into scientific law itself. All physical 
and chemical changes, all astronomical and geological move- 
ments are what they are whether we value them or not and 
whether we can use them to serve our ends or not; and it 
is the business of science to observe and record the laws of 
these changes and movements with sole reference to the facts. 
Indeed, it is only by the elimination of value-considerations 
that science can serve human life. On the other hand, phi- 
losophy, since its function is to interpret experience as a 
whole, must not only reckon with all the facts as described 
by the sciences, but also include an account of values and 
ideals. The question, What is truly valuable in life? is 
more fundamental than any question concerned with facts 
alone. Facts are means; values, ends. Facts and values 
are not, in reality, separable. If there were no facts (of 
conscious life), there would be no values; and if there were 
no values, it would not make any difference what the facts 
were. Perhaps there would be no facts! In so far as 
science thinks about facts apart from values, it is celebrat- 
ing a triumph of abstraction. Philosophy seeks to be con- 
crete; that is, it aims to see reality in its interconnection 
and interdependence. ‘The place of values in experience is, 
then, one of the important problems of philosophy. Interest 
in values distinguishes the philosophical from the scientific 
spirit.’ 

In at least one other respect, science and philosophy dif- 
fer; namely, in the kind of progress attained by each. Both 
science and philosophy are, it is true, developing. New dis- 
coveries in science and new movements in philosophy never 


1See G. A. Wilson, “Philosophy over against Science.” Phil. Rev., 31 
(1922), 257-268. 


PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE 13 


cease. Among men of science there is agreement about a 
large body of scientific truth; new “discoveries” are exam- 
ined and tested, and are either incorporated into the body 
of accepted truth or entirely rejected. The borderland of 
uncertainty and ignorance is daily being explored and daily 
new areas are added to the empire of knowledge. The first 
glance, however, either at the history of philosophy or at its 
present status reveals the absence of any such rectilinear 
advance as science has made. In the beginning was the 
strife of systems;* so also it is now and for all we know ever 
shall be. 

The lack of agreement among philosophers is one of the 
severest reproaches philosophy has to bear. If any system 
or point of view be as true as its advocates believe it to be, 
why does not every rational mind accept it, as every rational 
mind accepts the results of science? The answer to this 
question is found in the basic difference between science 
and philosophy. Science deals with special fields, with 
parts; philosophy deals with the whole of experience. We 
can all examine with our senses evidence about specific parts 
of the world; but the world as a whole, the final meaning of 
life, is visible only to the mind’s eye. Because of the limi- 
tations of our minds and the inexhaustibility of the universe, 
it appears improbable that all finite minds will ever see the 
whole in the same way. Differences then are to be expected. 
Life is richer, progress more inevitable, development freer, 
when each point of view finds full expression. 

Yet this answer does not wholly satisfy. Philosophy is 
supposed to be rational, true, universal; not subjective and 
individualistic. Yes; the rational, true, universal, is the 
goal for which all philosophers are striving. Just because 


1 This expression, from the title of a book by W. H. Sheldon, bids fair 
to become a standard philosophical term. 


14 THE PHIL OS\O NGAI Ss Bi Ret 


it is so high a goal, many views of it are possible, and no 
finite view completely adequate. We may ask, in Hegel’s 
spirit, whether every view does not represent a genuinely 
needed side of truth, and whether the error of any thesis 
does not consist in the denial of its antithesis. 


§ 9. THE PERILS OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL 
roe SABE) BS 


Evidently the philosophical spirit is most ambitious. Al- 
most as evidently, it is dangerous. It deals with the founda- 
tions and meaning of all life, with the human attitude toward 
the universe. A serious error in philosophy may well result 
in a permanently maladjusted life. It is easy to misunder- 
stand our friends and our own minds; how much easier 
to misunderstand the cosmos! Errors in reasoning befall 
the best of us. Weariness overtakes us too often ere we 
have thought our way through. There are perils of wrong 
thinking and perils of half thinking. Moreover there is the 
even greater peril of falling into a panic as soon as one 
becomes aware of the strife of systems. One then straight- 
way becomes an unreasoning skeptic, forgetting that skepti- 
cism itself is a philosophy, and forgetting that no success in 
philosophy or in life is ever won by the man who refuses 
to try. 

A man may be fortunate enough to escape the dangers that 
have been described and still be a less worthy human being 
on account of his study of philosophy. One may, for in- 
stance, develop a permanently fault-finding attitude, or an 
air of conceited superiority, or an absurd and bombastically 
over-technical manner of speech because one has studied 
philosophy. These faults are clearly defects of the man, 
not of philosophy; but it is peculiarly the part of one who 


PERL S Oke Rel e OS OP BY BS 


aspires to philosophize, and thus to be reasonable, also to 
be reasonable in the art of living. Too many who think 
skillfully about logic bungle their thinking about their own 
conduct. 

The hard-headed man on the street sees another peril in 
philosophy which is in his eyes more serious than what has 
been mentioned. He charges the philosopher not with intel- 
lectual defects or minor personal blemishes of life, but with 
a radical indifference to the affairs of the practical world. 
The philosopher theorizes when action is needed. ‘This 
charge has been brought of late by men deeply concerned 
about industrial and social justice. Never before has the 
social conscience of the world been so deeply stirred, never 
have there been so many people fired with zeal for finding 
a more reasonable and just economic order. How are the 
classes and the races to live together in peace? The prob- 
lem of finding the formula that is needed staggers the great- 
est minds. The ship of civilization is tossed by tempests, 
while the crew quarrels. In such a situation is it not clearly 
the duty of all good men to fall to and save the ship? 
Who but a selfish intellectual aristocrat could retire to the 
ship’s library and study philosophy in a time like this? 
At best, the study of philosophy is a luxury; under present 
conditions it is selfish, parasitic, and anti-social. What bear- 
ing do the puzzles of epistemology and metaphysics have on 
social need? So runs an objection that is not infrequently 
voiced by earnest men to-day. 

This objection is not wholly unreasonable in principle. 
There are times in an individual’s life when action rather 
than reflection is needed. May not the present be such a 
time in world history? 

No, we reply. It is most emphatically not such a time. 
If ever reflection were needed, it is now. If ever clear think- 


16 THE PHIPOSOPHTOCAL SPIRIT 


ing about values, the goal of progress, the place of religion 
in life, were imperatively called for, it is to-day. To aban- 
don philosophy now would be like throwing the captain over- 
board because he studies the charts instead of shoveling 
coal. Most social movements have been profoundly influ- 
enced by philosophy; the names of Locke and Rousseau, 
Hegel and Marx, Bentham and Mill, Bertrand Russell and 
John Dewey bear witness to this influence. Does man need 
God? Does he need the ideal values of the good, the true, 
the beautiful, the holy? Are the economic values to be 
viewed as wholly instrumental to higher ends? Must every 
social order be judged by its conformity with ideal values 
and by the opportunity that it affords its members to attain 
them? Is the production of worthy persons in a worthy 
society the chief end of man? Is service worth more with 
or without God? Is it wholly human effort or has God 
himself something to do with it? If these questions are of 
any importance, the social worker who ignores philosophical 
backgrounds is anti-social. The philosopher is the true 
servant of society. 

From a different quarter, the religious camp, philosophy 
is also charged with being dangerous. Philosophy is said 
to be a foe to faith in life’s highest and best. Wordsworth 
is sometimes quoted with unction: 


“Philosopher! A fingering slave, 
One that would peep and botanize 
Upon his mother’s grave!” 


In this charge there is some truth. The study of philosophy 
has often raised doubts and sometimes destroyed faith. No 
honest observer can deny that its study has occasionally 
caused spiritual disaster. But the same thing may with 
equal justice be said of marriage, the study of the Bible, 


PERILS OF PHILOSOPHY 17 


and diplomacy. None of these things is to be condemned 
merely because it sometimes has bad consequences. In 
each case, the question is to be decided by considering 
whether good or evil predominates. 

Just as the good of studying the Bible probably predom- 
inates over the evil (although some Bible students come to 
distrust religion and perhaps even turn out murderers), so 
the good of philosophy predominates over the evil. It is 
true that certain types of philosophy are openly opposed 
to any religious world view; and that the exclusive study of 
such philosophies is dangerous to religion. But if religion 
be true, religion is more dangerous to those philosophies than 
those philosophies are to religion. Even so, religion needs 
philosophy. How can religion, without philosophical scholar- 
ship, show her truth and her superiority to opposing philos- 
-ophies? How could doubts be solved without showing the 
reasonableness of faith? 

If some philosophy has led to disaster, the remedy is more 
and better philosophy. The only reasonable answer to 
agnosticism and skepticism, or to any form of religious 
doubt, is to be found in philosophical reflection. If there 
are problems that philosophy cannot solve, if faith is an 
essential part of every sane life, then a philosophy that inter- 
prets experience as a whole is the best instrument for estab- 
lishing this fact. Philosophy is a two-edged sword. It 
would be folly to cast away our most trusty weapon because 
some have cut their fingers on it. 

Philosophy is in many respects dangerous. He who wishes 
comfort and security regardless of truth and right should 
turn back. He whose courage is weak, whose faith is 
timorous, whose desire for adventure has died out, should 
turn back. He who does not wish to think should turn back, 
for there appears to be no way of making experience intel- 


18 THE “PHYLOS OR ARCA tis Birk 


ligible to the thinking mind that does not at the same time 
make it unintelligible to the unthinking. Those minds that, 
aware of the perils and seeking to avoid them, are willing 
to incur any necessary risk in pursuit of the truth are the 
dwelling-place of the philosophical spirit. 


§ 10. VALUE OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL SPIRIT 


When the thinker has braved pitfall and gin, if he per- 
severes he will find that philosophy is capable of im- 
parting a new meaning to life, of adding worth to every ex- 
perience. Let us consider some of these her higher func- 
tions. 

Philosophy is the thinking attitude. Thinking in the true 
sense is the process of relating judgments logically to the 
end of solving some problem or problems. Much that is 
commonly called thinking is a mere holding of opinions, or 
awareness of associated ideas, or mental drifting. Thinking 
is an art requiring much practice. It must be learned, like 
swimmiig, skating, or aviation. All living involves judging, 
and in some sense, all living involves thinking, be it good 
or bad. Anything that can enlarge the power of thought 
is a boon to man. Much education is mere memory-drill, 
which is disturbed by no breath of real thought. In the 
study of mathematics, and of the sciences, and of the humani- 
ties, there should be constant challenge to thorough and 
precise or to broad and profound thinking. But there is 
no discipline that so constantly demands the power of 
thought as does philosophy. Philosophy cannot be learned. 
It must be thought out. The classics of philosophy are 
perhaps the best intellectual gymnasium in all literature. 
If there is such a thing as learning to think, philosophy is 
the master-teacher of the art. 


VVEUE OF SYEPEE OS OP ry 19 


Philosophy is not only the thinking attitude; it is also the 
truth-loving attitude. These two attitudes are distinct. 
One may think for practical ends only, disregarding truth, 
except such truth as serves the purpose; or one may have a 
high sentimental regard for truth, without being willing to 
pay the price of severe and disciplined thought, which alone 
can attain truth. Truth is an imperious mistress. Like 
untrue Vivien she sings, ‘“‘Trust me not at all, or all in all.” 
This means the love of truth, irrespective of results; and, 
paradoxically, the love of all truth, including truth about 
results. The impartial philosopher may find Schopenhauer’s 
language extreme, but he will approve that philosopher’s in- 
tent when he proffers a philosophy “whose pole-star is truth 
alone, the naked, unrewarded, unbefriended, often persecuted 
truth,” and contrasts it with “that alma mater, the good, 
well-to-do university philosophy, which, burdened with a 
hundred aims and a thousand motives, comes on its course 
cautiously tacking, while it keeps before its eyes at all 
times the fear of the Lord, the will of the ministry, the laws 
of the established church, the wishes of the publisher, the 
attendance of the students, the good-will of colleagues, the 
course of current politics, the momentary tendency of the 
public, and Heaven knows what besides.” * The philosopher, 
of course, does not have to withdraw from state and church 
and social relations; but he believes that all worthy institu- 
tions are better served by truth than by evasion. 

Catholicity is another fruit of the philosophical spirit. 
It is the very life’s breath of philosophy to be broadly in- 
clusive; to take cognizance of every experience, interest, 
point of view. Certain figures in the history of philosophy 
may have been intensely partisan; but the greatest philos- 
ophers have been greatest in catholicity. When Hamlet said, 

1The World as Will and Idea, Vol. I, pp. X XIX f. 


20 THE PAVE OSOPTRGATaSmOR DT 


“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” 


he furnished ammunition to the anti-philosophers. But 
philosophy could well reply, ““There may be much in the 
universe that has never entered into or affected human ex- 
perience; but no one, whatever his mantic gift, could have 
any inkling of this unexperienced beyond without at once 
bringing some aspect of it into human experience, and so 
into the province of philosophy.” If Horatio’s philosophy 
omitted anything that man has ever done or thought, per- 
ceived or believed, hoped or dreamed or felt, it was not 
true to the task of philosophy! 

This trait is intimately connected with another, which it 
naturally generates, namely tolerance. It is a difficult task 
to define precisely wherein true tolerance consists, or whether 
it has limits, or whether the intolerant should be tolerated. 
Without attempting a study of the casuistry of tolerance, one 
remains well within the bounds of truth when one counts 
philosophy among the powerful historical influences making 
for freedom of thought, tolerance of opposing creeds and 
opinions, and sympathetic recognition, not alone of the right 
to entertain different points of view, but of the truth to be 
found in all honest human thinking. 

If, however, philosophy were merely tolerant, it might © 
be criticized in two respects as spineless. Tolerance, it might 
be urged, is too weak an attitude. One should not merely 
tolerate, one should welcome different standpoints. Only 
the weak superman tolerates; the strong one greets strong 
comrades who are his rivals too. It might also justly be 
urged that if the philosopher cultivates tolerance at the 
expense of his own intellectual insight, he buys the virtue 
too dearly. If the philosopher were one who, without 


YALUE OF) PHILOSOPHY 21 


thought of his own, surveyed with equal eye the truths and 
errors, the righteousness and the sins of the world, he would 
never have attained his position of eminence in human cul- 
ture. It is precisely because he has found it possible to 
combine tolerance with positive conviction that he is re- 
spected by thoughtful men. The true philosopher is not he 
who holds no opinions and passes no judgments. “Cratylus, 
who finally thought he should say nothing, but only moved 
his finger”’ * acquires his fame from his mention by Aristotle, 
who thought that he should say a great deal. To assert 
that the typical philosopher is a man without beliefs is to 
caricature philosophy. ‘The spirit that combines tolerance 
with conviction, open-mindedness with loyalty, yet com- 
promises neither, is a mature product of philosophy at its 
best. 

The most substantial work of the philosophical spirit 
still remains to be mentioned. Some of the values that have 
been discussed are often also acquired in other ways than 
through philosophy. The unique contribution of philosophy 
to human life is that it furnishes a tool for the interpreta- 
tion of the meaning and goal of life; a background, which 
gives unity to our science, our art, our literature, our morals, 
our religion, indeed to our whole civilization and also to our 
most intimate personal experiences. He who knows what 
he thinks about fundamental questions, and why he thinks 
as he does, and who has faced life’s meaning as a whole, 
has broken down the “water-tight compartments” into which 
(as James told us) men’s minds tend to divide themselves; 
and he is able to move freely from any one part of his life to 
every other without running into obstacles or contradictions. 
His art and his morals, his science and his religion, will per- 
form each its appropriate function, and each will live in 


1 Aristotle, Metaphysics, I~, 1010a, 12-13. 


22 THE PHILOSOPHICAL SPIRIT 


harmonious codperation with the other, in so far as the 
conditions of life render it possible. In short, to philosophize 
is to be a human being with one mind instead of a chaos of 
conflicting feelings, prejudices, and opinions. The prayer 
of the psalmist is, “Unite my heart to fear thy name.” The 
philosopher’s prayer is, “Unite my mind to understand thy 
universe.” 


§ II. PHILOSOPHICAL METHODS 


In the foregoing pages there has been given some account 
of the philosophical spirit, and of the perils and prizes that 
await whoever partakes of it. This spirit is not a mere sen- 
timent, but is concrete intellectual work. It remains within 
the province of the present chapter to inquire into the 
methods by which philosophy does its work. 

There have been numerous conceptions of what proper 
philosophical method is. It would be futile to attempt to 
list every shade of opinion, but it will avoid much later con- 
fusion if we now mention some of the types of method that 
have been proposed and tested in the course of the history 
of philosophy. Some important methods (such as the trans- 
cendental or critical) will be omitted. 

(1) THE Rationatistic MetHop. Modern philosophy 
has been greatly influenced by Descartes, who is called a 
rationalist (in a special sense of that ambiguous word). 
His method was to doubt everything that can be doubted 
until he arrived at some indubitable certainty, which could 
be used as a secure basis for inference. He believed that 
his own existence as a thinker (res cogitans) was such a cer- 
tainty. It could not be denied without being affirmed; when 
I doubt, I am thinking. He tried to show that the existence 
of God and of physical things could be deduced from the 


PHILOSOPHICAL METHODS 23 


fundamental truth of self-existence, and that in turn all 
the details of philosophy could be deduced from these. 
Later thinkers find many flaws in his logic, but his ration- 
alistic method is clear. It is, to find a few fundamental con- 
cepts, which are often said to be axiomatic or self-evident, 
and to deduce what necessarily follows from them. The re- 
sult is believed to be demonstrated truth. 

Rationalistic method is an austere ideal. It is not lightly 
to be dismissed. It may be dubbed a “method of rigor and 
vigor” by Matthew Arnold, may be stigmatized as ‘‘tender- 
minded” by James, or “introverted” by Jung; it may be 
called abstract, artificial, @ priori, fictitious, or what you 
will. These labels do not refute it. Whatever defects 
rationalism may have, it is the method of mathematics, per- 
haps the purest product of human reason. It has inspired 
sublime philosophies, and calls many minds from the con- 
tingencies of sense-perception to an ideal realm of necessary 
truth. 

But sublime as is this ideal, few philosophers to-day would 
espouse it in the sense defined. It is too difficult to be sure 
that your fundamental concepts, standing alone, are abso- 
lutely certain. If they happen not to be true or complete, 
the whole system deduced from them is vitiated. Further, 
there is much in our experience, such as perceptions and 
values, that cannot well be regarded as the conclusion of a 
syllogism. A rationalistic philosophy will be doomed in ad- 
vance to failure, if philosophy be an account of the whole of 
experience. Other defects will be apparent in the course of 
the discussion of the other methods. 

(2) THE ScrenTIFIC MetHop. Closely related to ration- 
alism in many respects, and sometimes called by that name, 
is what is known as the scientific method. It would be more 
precise to speak of scientific methods, for scientific method 


24 THE PHILOSOPHICAL SPIRIT 


in philosophy appears in at least two forms, the analytic 
and the experimental.* 

The analytic method, as the name implies, holds that 
truth about the objects of experience is to be reached by 
complete analysis of perceived objects into their constituent 
parts, until parts are reached that can be no further analyzed, 
—like the point and instant in the mathematical analysis 
of space and time. The analytic method also takes account 
of the relations of the parts (synthesis). This method has 
been brought into prominence of late by the neo-realistic 
movement in England and America. The use of this method 
is of course confined to no one school. It is the common 
property of all, realists and idealists alike. An unanalytic 
philosopher is a round square, a monstrosity. 

At the same time, difficulty arises when analysis is viewed 
as the only valid method of thought. This difficulty is 
illustrated by Spaulding’s acute defense of analysis (referred 
to in § 8), which insists that complete analysis will discover 
whatever properties wholes may have as wholes, beyond the 
properties of the parts and their relations. He admits, how- 
ever, that the existence of such properties as belong to wholes 
(properties of biological organisms, chemical compounds, 
atoms) is “a non-rational element in nature.”? Right 
there’s the rub! A conception of rationality that condemns 
the most complex and significant structures of our experience 
as non-rational would appear to be “‘cabin’d, cribb’d, con- 
fined, bound in” to a restricted and narrow use. It should 
not be accepted as the sole instrument of thought,—at least, 
not without search for a better one. 

The other form of scientific method that is employed is 


1 See the author’s article, “Personalistic Method in Philosophy,’ Meth. 
Rev., 103 (1920), pp. 368-380. 
2The New Realism, p. 241. 


PHILOSOPHICAL METHODS 25 


the experimental. This has recently been popularized by 
pragmatism. Like analysis, it is a thoroughly justified 
method; like analysis it has limitations in use. The sciences 
are built on experiment. Pragmatism does well to teach that 
we can never learn the full truth about any proposition or 
hypothesis until we test it, follow its leading, discover the 
particular consequences that flow from it. The method of 
experiment is not limited to the laboratory or to material 
instruments. The mind makes Gedankenexperimente, ex- 
periments of thought. Hegel? records an advertisement in 
an English paper of a book entitled, ““The Art of Preserving 
the Hair, on Philosophical Principles.”’ But philosophical 
experiments are not confined to hirsute or other physical 
realms; they deal with the spiritual life. 

If the experimental method be wisely interpreted, it is 
an essential part of all sound philosophy,—but it is only a 
part. As we have seen, rationalism and analysis are both, 
within limits, parts of valid method; obviously, experimental 
method should not be so interpreted as to exclude these. 

For another reason, the experimental method is incom- 
plete. Every experiment is made under conditions that in- 
volve certain presuppositions, and aims at solving some — 
problem. The result of the experiment is relative to those 
presuppositions and to that problem. Experiment as 
physical fact is lost motion if its results are not interpreted 
by a mind. Thought-experiments, likewise, are mere psy- 
chological play unless the mind that makes them interprets 
their meaning for experience as a whole. The experimental 
method must be subordinated to some higher principle of 
interpretation. 

(3) THE Romantic Metnop. The romantic method, if 
it may be called a method, is a reaction against the one- 

1 Encytlopddie, § 7. 


26 THE PHILOSOPRIUCAL SS RERTT 


sidedness of rationalism and science. This method is hard 
to define. Partisan romanticists may describe as romantic 
whatever is noble, and good, and original, and interesting. 
Partisan foes of romanticism often use the term to express 
contempt; for them, the romantic is the unscientific, the 
thoughtlessly emotional, the irrational. 

The romantic method in philosophy may be described as 
the tendency to base a world view chiefly on feelings and 
instincts. Mephistopheles was a romanticist when he said, 


“Grau, teurer Freund, ist alle Theorie 
Und griin des Lebens goldner Baum.’’+ 


At first this would appear to be in flat contradiction not 
only to rationalistic and scientific methods, but also to all 
philosophy. If taken literally and exclusively, it doubtless 
is opposed to all sound reason. To base philosophy on feel- 
ing as opposed to thinking, on instinct as opposed to reason, 
is to abandon the very task of philosophy. Feeling without 
thought, if such can exist, is meaningless mental confusion. 
Without some element of thought, one feeling could not be 
distinguished from another, save in terms of pleasantness 
and unpleasantness. Unchecked feeling is notoriously errat- 
ic, transitory, and untrustworthy. Hardly the most extreme 
romanticist has meant to base his life on mere feeling. 
The romantic method must be taken relatively, if at all. 

Despite its obvious defects and excesses, the romantic 
method makes a real contribution to philosophy. If phi- 
losophy be an interpretation of the whole of experience, any 
method that omits important aspects of life is partially un- 
philosophical. Romanticism calls attention to facts that 
rationalism and science easily ignore. The romanticist 


1 “Gray, dear friend, is all theory, and green life’s golden tree.” 


PHILOSOPHICAL METHODS ra | 


asserts the rights of the heart against the arrogant head; 
points to facts of feeling and instinct that rationalism can- 
not deduce and that analysis tends to destroy. Less justi- 
fiable in itself than any other proposed method, it is useful 
aS a warning against the narrowness of mere intellectualism. 
The ideal philosophy will take the life of feeling into ac- 
count and will aim to understand not only its origin and 
structure, but also its function in adjusting man to his cosmic 
environment. To teach this is the service of romanticism. 

(4) THE Synoptic Metuop. The term synopsis was 
used by Plato* to mean the seeing of anything all together 
in one view. Plato saw that knowledge and education were 
incomplete as long as the special sciences were left separate 
and distinct. They must, he says, “be brought together into 
a synopsis.’ Merz in A History of European Thought in 
the Nineteenth Century” has introduced the Platonic term 
into recent philosophy, and Sorley,* Bosanquet,* and others 
have brought it into wider currency. 

In the opinion of the present writer, synopsis is the char- 
acteristic method of philosophy. It means the viewing of 
any object or complex of objects as a whole. Philosophical 
synopsis presupposes that the rationalistic, scientific and 
romantic methods have all been tried, and that their results 
are before the mind. In synoptic reason, however, the mind 
does more than to review the separate facts of deduction, 
analysis and synthesis, experiment, and feeling. Knowing 
these facts, it sees them together and sees also the qualities 
of the object as a whole, which the other methods tend to 
omit, underestimate, or merely take for granted. Those who 

1 Rep. 537C. 

2 Vol. III, pp. 192 ff., Vol. IV, pp. 431 ff. 

8 Moral Values and the Idea of God, 2nd ed., p. 250, to which the 


reader should refer. 
4 Implication and Linear Inference, p. V1. 


28 THE PHILOSOPRICAL SPUR IT 


ignore the synoptic method are the objects of Goethe’s criti- 
cism in his lines that have been quoted by philosophers, 
from Hegel on: 


“To understand the living whole 

They start by driving out the soul; 

They count the parts, and when all’s done, 
Alas! the spirit-bond is gone!” ? 


No one can adequately understand any whole without con- 
sidering it as a whole, as well as knowing its parts and their 
relations. No study of the parts of a human body will reveal 
the laws of the behavior of the organism as a whole. No 
investigation of the parts of a sunflower will discover the 
fact of heliotropism. No analysis of the “states of con- 
sciousness” into elements will do justice to the higher 
processes of emotion, thought, and _ self-consciousness. 
Synopsis without prior analysis is superficial and inarticulate; 
analysis without synopsis is the dissection of a corpse; 
synopsis and analysis combined yield the richest and com- 
pletest knowledge of which the human mind is capable. 

Synopsis, under various names, has been recognized by 
the greatest minds as the supreme philosophical method. 
It is what Plato, Kant, and Hegel called reason; ? what 
Spinoza called scientia intuitiva, and Bergson, intuition, 
although it is true that the latter unduly divorces intuition 
from intellect. It is shown at work in the Hegelian dialectic 
and in Eucken’s nodlogical method; it is the principle of 
logic in Bradley and Bosanquet. 

The method of synopsis suffers from the defect of being 


1 The translation is from Sorley, Moral Values and the Idea of God, 
p. 248. 

2For an interpretation of the synoptic function of reason, see Royce, 
The Sources of Religious Insight, pp. 79-116, and Wallace, The Logic 
of Hegel (translation), pp. 400-402. 


oN 


WHAT TO EXPECT 29 


often incapable of rigorously precise application. Its re- 
sults are ordinarily not susceptible of being demonstrated 
mathematically. It is, however, the only instrument by 
which thought can hope to reach an understanding of process 
and life and mind. Not every synopsis is valid. Every 
synopsis is, in a sense, an hypothesis until it has been tested 
by all the means at our disposal. The process of forming 
hypotheses in the sciences is a synoptic process. If the 
goal of philosophy is to be reached or even approached, it 
will be by the use of synoptic method. Indeed, the philo- 
sophical spirit, which we have been considering in this 
chapter may well be described as the synoptic spirit.” 


§ 12. WHAT WE MAY EXPECT FROM 
‘PHILOSOPHY 


As we prepare to advance from this preliminary acquaint- 
ance with the philosophical spirit to a study of the way it 
goes to work on particular problems, it would be well to cast 
up accounts in advance and ask ourselves how much we may 
expect from philosophy. ‘The trite but true answer may be 
given, That depends on how much you put into it. This 
does not, however, tell the whole story. No matter how 
much one puts into philosophy, disillusionment may ensue 
if one expects too much, and unduly meager results will 
be attained if one expects too little. Even the old virtues 
of patience and perseverance, humility and loyalty, com- 
bined with clear-headed attention to the problems, will not 
carry any finite being in finite time to a comprehension of 
the whole of infinite truth,—although some philosophers 
may appear to have been pretty confident that they knew 
the whole story. There will always be need of growth and 


1 See the further discussion of method in Chapter IV, $7. 


30 THE RADY OST CA Disae LRAT 


revision with the increase of experience and insight. There 
will always be a realm of obscurity and uncertainty. There 
will be the disappointment of finding that there are many 
important problems on which reasonable minds seem unable 
to agree, although this disappointment will nourish the spirit 
of tolerance and will incite further effort. Yet, whatever 
the limitations and disappointments incident to its pursuit, 
philosophy promises much to him who approaches it in the 
right, that is, the truly philosophical, spirit. The joy of 
thinking about high themes is a satisfaction unknown to 
the man of narrow interests. Moreover, philosophy can 
promise its faithful student a better understanding of him- 
self, of his fellow human beings and their thinking, of the 
real world, and of the value and purpose of life,—an under- 
standing that is capable of indefinite expansion. Philosophy 
is like the soul, for, as Heraclitus says, ‘““You will not find 
the boundaries of soul by traveling in any direction, so deep 
is the measure of it.’ * 


1 Bywater’s ed., frag. 71. Burnet’s translation, Early Greek Philoso- 
phy. 


CHAPTER II 


HOW CAN WE DISTINGUISH TRUTH 
FROM ERROR? 


SI. SKETCH OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF LOGIC 


There is no single order in which the problems of philos- 
ophy must be taken up. Some would prefer to plunge at 
once into the task of interpreting experience, making progress 
from the point where one happens to be and profiting as best 
one can by one’s mistakes. Others would insist that the true 
beginning of philosophy lies (as Lotze has suggested) in 
ethics. Others would begin with psychology, or with biology, 
or with mathematics, or with physics. 

It is possible to begin in any one of the ways suggested; 
but it is a mistake to maintain the exclusive right of any 
one starting-point. If philosophy could have her own way, 
regardless of the conditions of human nature, her choice 
would doubtless be to begin everywhere at once, and to pro- 
ceed in all directions at the same time. The human philos- 
opher, however, must select some starting-point. 

It appears to the present writer that the best way to begin 
the study of philosophy proper is to attempt to answer the 
question: How can we distinguish truth from error? No 
progress whatever can be made in understanding our experi- 
ence without some means of distinguishing what is true from 
what is not true.’ : 

The name of the science that is concerned with the dis- 


1 Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, p. 293, appears to dep- 
recate the importance of this problem. 


31 


ae TRUTH AND ERROR 


covery and formulation of the laws of correct or true thinking 
is logic.t Aristotle was the first to organize logic as a science. 
He founded what is known as deductive or syllogistic logic. 
All reasoning, he observed, proceeds by relating judgments 
in such fashion as to draw inferences from them, or to 
develop their implications. Aristotle discovered that there 
were certain ways in which judgments may be combined that 
will lead to valid conclusions. He also observed that these 
modes of combination hold whether the subject matter of the 
judgments concerned be true or false, possible or impossible 
in reality, so long as the reasoning does not contain a self- 
contradiction. For instance, if it be true that ignorance is 
bliss, and that not knowing where your next meal is com- 
ing from is ignorance, it follows necessarily that not to 
know where your next meal is coming from is bliss. Even 
the untutored mind can perceive that this reasoning is cor- 
rect, and also that its conclusion is (under most circum- 
stances) false. Hence the Aristotelian logic yields only the 
laws of correct or valid thinking; it does not satisfy our 
demand for truth. It is, at best, “formally” true; more is 
needed to establish “material” truth. All true thinking 
must abstain from violating the laws of formal logic; but 
obedience to the laws of formal logic does not ensure true 
thinking. Just as one’s behavior may be formally correct 
without being morally right, so one’s thinking may be for- 
mally correct without being true. 

The next great step forward in logic was made when induc- 
tive logic was developed. Inductive logic is the study of 
scientific method, particularly of the methods of establishing 


1 Some, especially neo-realists, object to defining logic as a science of 
thought, and would prefer to regard it as the science of the most universal 
characters of objects. 


DEVELOPMENT OF LOGIC 33 


relations of cause and effect among phenomena. Syllogistic 
logic proceeds from premises, of which at least one is general, 
to a conclusion, which is particular (or less general), and 
hence it is called deductive. Inductive logic proceeds from 
a study of the actual facts of experience, which are particular 
(like ants, or snow-flakes, or plantain leaves) to the discovery 
of universal causal laws. This type of logic, which evidently 
brings thought into contact with reality as merely deductive 
logic fails to do, has been developing as modern science has 
grown. Sir Francis Bacon and John Stuart Mill made im- 
portant contributions to inductive logic. 

The highest stage of logical theory may be called philo- 
sophical logic, or the logic of truth. The nomenclature of 
this stage is not, however, so fixed as is that of the two other 
stages. Having learned the formal principles of correct 
thinking and the laws whereby the sciences may make valid 
inductions, the mind still inquires about truth and error. 
Are we to be satisfied with formal correctness and with the 
causal laws of the special sciences? Must not truth about 
experience as a whole include answers to questions that the 
sciences do not even ask? 

Modern philosophy may be not unjustly described as a 
search for the logic of truth. Ancient philosophy, partic- 
ularly in Plato and Aristotle, has, it is true, anticipated much 
of the best in modern philosophy on this as on other prob- 
lems. But consciousness of the logical problem has been 
more clear-cut and more widely diffused in modern thought. 
The rationalism of Descartes and the analytic empiricism of 
Locke and his school were alike concerned with the founda- 
tions of philosophical logic, as was the critical philosophy 
of Kant. More than any of his predecessors, however, Hegel 
put logic into the foreground of philosophy, and went so far 


34 PRU LEAN DtiypR ROR 


as to identify logic with metaphysics. His philosophy, based 
on the synoptic method, regards truth as a coherent, organic 
whole. 

Hegel’s theory of truth has influenced many who have not 
accepted his metaphysical views, and some of the best 
work of recent logic (by Bradley and Bosanquet, for ex- 
ample) has been under Hegelian influence. On the other 
hand, the accounts of truth worked out by the analytic 
method of the new realism and the experimental method 
of pragmatism are consciously intended as criticisms of 
Hegelianism. 


§2. THE MEANING OF TRUTH 


Before taking up a direct study of the various possible 
answers to the problem of the chapter, a preliminary ques- 
tion should be raised. We are to discuss the tests of truth. 
What, then, is truth? This question, as we ask it, does not 
mean, What is the whole truth about things? Nor does it 
mean to imply the skepticism of a scornful Pilate. It means 
simply, How shall we define the word frue? Sometimes, evi- 
dently, we denote by it the moral quality of loyalty, or of 
honesty, or of veracity. Logic is interested in the term, 
not as applied to the character of persons, but as applied to 
judgments. 

It is true that two plus eight are ten; that sulphuric 
acid is composed of two atoms of hydrogen, one of sulphur 
and four of oxygen; and that the Pilgrims landed at Plym- 
outh in 1620. What common meaning, if any, attaches to the 
term érue under these and all conditions? An examination 
of cases in which we use it, will lead to the conclusion that 
we ordinarily mean to assert that a true judgment is one 
that describes or refers to a state of affairs that is as 


INSTINCT 35 


described. In other words, a true judgment is one that cor- 
responds to reality. 

Let us adopt this definition for the purposes of the present 
chapter; and proceed to consider the merits of the chief 
tests (or criteria) of truth that are actually used by human 
beings in deciding whether a proposed belief be true. The 
order in which the criteria are discussed is intended to be 
both logical and, roughly speaking, historical. It will be seen 
that the various criteria, at certain points, overlap, but it 
will also be seen that each criterion represents a distinct 
point of view and emphasis. The criteria to be discussed 
are: 


Instinct 

Custom 

Tradition 
Consensus gentium 
Feeling 

Sense experience 
Intuition 
Correspondence 
Pragmatism 
Coherence 


OEE Nie aged Gea rea age 


an 


§ 3. INSTINCT AS CRITERION 


It is often said that war is a necessary and even justified 
human institution because it is instinctive to fight; the judg- 
ment about ethical truth is, then, based on an appeal to 
instinct. Or it is said that religion is true because in every 
man’s nature there is a religious instinct. Or it is argued 
that the highest and most beautiful forms of love have no 
more significance than the instinctive impulse to procreation 
in which they take their origin. 

Little reflection is needed to show the impossibility of 
successful appeal to instinct as a criterion of truth. 


36 TRUTH AND ERROR 


There is very great difference of opinion about the defini- 
tion of instinct. Some hold that the term should be aban- 
doned. At any rate, it is difficult to distinguish between 
what is inherited and what is acquired. Instinct (whatever 
it is) is modified in its development by intelligence and 
intelligence by instinct: no one not an expert,—and the 
expert least of all,—is competent to say just how much of 
human nature is instinctive and how much acquired. 

Granted, however, that instinct has been defined and dis- 
tinguished from the rest of our psychological and biological 
life, it would be evident that this work of definition, which 
carries us outside of instinct, and compares instinct with the 
rest of life, must be the work of some other function than 
that of instinct itself. In other words, if instinct is sig- 
nificant for truth, it clearly cannot be the sole fundamental 
criterion. Indeed, it is safe to say that no serious thinker 
ever thought that instinct could stand alone as a criterion of 
truth. 

We must, however, go further, and say that instinct is 
never a safe test of truth; for instincts conflict with each 
other. Sociability is said* to be an instinct, but so is 
jealousy; sympathy and resentment, anger and love, fear 
and curiosity are all in the list. If instinct is a criterion of 
truth, are we to trust the beliefs that arise from sympathy 
or from resentment, from fear or from curiosity? To this 
query instinct itself has no reply. On the plane of instinct, 
every instinct has equal right; no instinct, merely because 
it is an instinct, is sufficient ground for believing anything. 
Therefore the militarist and the religionist alike are doing 
the cause dear to them an ill turn when they ask us to be- 


1 All of the instincts named are from the list of W. James’s larger 
Psychology, Vol. II, Chap. 24. See E. C. Wilm’s forthcoming book, 
The Theories of Instinct, for a survey of the subject. 


CUSTOM 37 


lieve in the moral necessity of war or in the existence of 
God on the basis of man’s instincts. Such appeals may stir 
emotions and even produce results; but they make the 
judicious grieve. 

If we are therefore to conclude, as we logically must, that 
instinct is not to be trusted as a criterion of truth, it by no 
means follows that instinct is always wrong. Science, philos- 
ophy, civilization itself would not long survive were it not 
for the instincts; if the instinct of curiosity, for example, 
were to be seriously weakened, the nerve of progress would 
be paralyzed. Rejection of instinct as criterion does not 
imply rejection of instinct from the content of reasonable 
life. It implies rather that instinct makes its proper con- 
tribution to truth only when criticized and controlled by 
some other function. 


§ 4. CUSTOM AS CRITERION 


Primitive man was doubtless a creature of instinct or of 
what has been commonly believed to be instinct. But at a 
very early point in the history of the human race, the stand- 
ards to which his action conformed were not merely those 
of instinct; the behavior of the group, the beliefs and ideals 
of the group, were authoritative for the individual. Over 
against the conflict of instincts and emotions, clan or tribal 
customs appeared to furnish security and stability to the 
individual and to his interests. It probably never occurred 
to primitive man to question the truth of the beliefs asso- 
ciated with the customs of his tribe any more than it 
occurs to many a citizen of the modern world to question 
the absolute honesty and trustworthiness of his government, 
his bank, or his church. But the time comes when tribe 
clashes with tribe, and custom with custom. Governments 


38 TRUTH AND ERROR 


make secret treaties and public denials; banks and churches 
fail. History makes it evident, beyond the need of labored 
argument, that, however much value there may be in custom, 
it is not acriterion of truth. No belief is true merely because 
it is customary to believe it. 


§ 5. TRADITION AS CRITERION 


The feeling that what is socially approved must be true 
is hard to eradicate. Many who would agree with the con- 
tention that custom is no valid test of truth would still 
argue that tradition is such a test. While custom is more or 
less capricious and untrustworthy, the case stands differently 
with tradition; for it represents a type of belief that has 
been tested by successive generations and has been able to 
assert itself amidst changing customs and conditions. Com- 
mon sense pleads the cause of the traditionalist; for (it 
would justly ask) if millenniums of past human effort have 
been unable to discover truth, what prospect has the modern 
philosopher of finding it? 

The legitimate function of tradition in civilization is 
impressive; in art, in religion, in education, in morals, in 
law, and in other departments of culture, tradition is the 
source of much that is highest and best. Without its tradi- 
tions, humanity would soon be reduced to barbarism. Un- 
appreciative hostility toward the past is not merely ingrati- 
tude; it is cultural suicide. 

Yet after all this has been said, no proof has been offered 
that tradition is the test of truth for which we are search- 
ing. In order to reject mere tradition as a criterion of 
truth, it is not necessary to listen to the raucous voices of 
the young people who write the current literature of impuri- 
tanism; he who knows the traditions of the race will remem- 


CONSENSUS GENTIUM 39 


ber that Socrates taught that the unexamined life is not 
worth living, and that Isaiah’s God had only scorn for those 
whose fear of him was “a tradition of men that hath been 
taught them.” * One cannot be true to tradition without 
discriminating between what “hath been said to them of old 
time” and what “I say unto you.” Only a restricted pro- 
vincialism can ignore the fact that there are conflicting tradi- 
tions. Tradition, like the White Queen, sometimes believes 
aS many as six impossible things before breakfast. Tradi- 
tion, then, must be judged by some standard which is valid 
for a more substantial reason than that it is traditional. 

There may, then, be truth in tradition, as in instinct or 
custom; but neither tradition nor custom nor instinct is a 
principle for testing truth. 


86. CONSENSUS GENTIUM 


A final attempt to find a criterion within the field of social 
agreement has been made by those that point to the con- 
sensus gentium, or universal agreement, as the desired 
criterion. ‘This principle has had the endorsement of dis- 
tinguished minds. Cicero in De Natura Deorum i. 16, ii. 4, 
asserts it, “De quo autem omnium natura consensit, id verum 
esse necesse est,” * as does the famous criterion of the 
Church, “Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus 
creditum est.” * Any belief that is universally shared by 
all human beings would appear to reveal something true 
about the structure of the human mind and perhaps about 
the universe. 

Yet a critical inspection of this criterion reveals its inade- 


1Ts, 29: 13d. American Standard Version. 

2“That concerning which the nature of all men agrees is necessarily 
true.’ The references are given in Wallace, The Logic of H egel, p. 408. 

8 “What has been believed always, everywhere, and by all’ 


40 TRUTH AND ERROR 


quacy. While any wide-spread belief may be true, and while 
all sincere belief is worthy of respect, the following consid- 
erations show how untrustworthy is the consensus gentium 
as a criterion. 

It is exceedingly difficult, indeed impossible, to prove that 
any proposition has been held by all men to be true. Records 
of the beliefs of all men are not extant. 

If there is universal agreement, it is with reference to a 
very meager set of beliefs. If all men believe in the existence 
of a material world, the views about the nature of matter 
are so diverse that the common elements in this belief are 
exceedingly vague. 

Precisely in the most important matters, such as the mean- 
ing of life, the right social and economic relations, the nature 
and being of God, there is the most striking difference of 
opinion among men. 

Even if there were universal agreement on certain beliefs, 
this would not constitute proof of those beliefs.* There has 
been substantially universal agreement about the size and 
shape of the earth, and about many other matters; but later 
investigations have shown these beliefs to be false. The 
consensus gentium has to yield to the decision of a higher 
court. What every one once held to be false and impossible 
is now held to be true, or is a matter of every-day experience. 
What every one once held to be true and necessary is now 
seen to be false and impossible. “Common sense’ changes 
from age to age, and is itself largely the deposit left by the 
thought of scientists and philosophers. 

Not only does the consensus suffer from the defects men- 
tioned, but also it contains no principle for their improve- 


1Cf. Hegel, Encyclopadie, § 71. 
2See A. C. Armstrong’s article, “Philosophy and Common Sense,” 
Phil. Rev., 25 (1916), 103-120. 


FEELING 41 


ment. If universal agreement be the criterion of truth, and 
people agree universally on some error, there would appear 
to be no way of deliverance from that error, so long as one 
trusts agreement as criterion. 

We can draw only one conclusion from the evidence: 
namely, that widespread and even universal agreement 
among men is not a criterion of truth. What is universally 
believed (if there be anything of the sort) may well enough 
be true; but it is not known to be true on account of its 
being universally believed. It is pleasant to agree with our 
fellow-men; but this pleasure does not exempt us from the 
duty of asking whether the points on which we agiee are 
really true. 


§ 7. FEELING AS CRITERION 


Discouraged by the attempt to discover a criterion in the 
facts of common belief, one may fall back on one’s own 
feeling as the ultimate test of truth. At bottom, why do I 
believe a thing to be true? One may reply, Simply because 
I feel it to be true. I cannot get rid of the feeling, which 
is a fact in my life; the thing must be true! 

While very many human beings actually do base their 
lives on feeling, and many popular religious and political 
leaders appeal to it, feeling is manifestly no criterion of 
truth. What was said about instinct applies here. 

There are good and bad, true and false, permanent and 
changeable, feelings; our feelings are determined by our 
mood, our environment, our digestion——by anything and 
everything. Here, if anywhere, is the place to apply 
Goethe’s saying, “In der Beschrankung zeigt sich erst der 
Meister.””* He who does not limit and control his feelings 


1 “Tn self-limitation the master is revealed.” 


42 TRUTH AND ERROR 


has little prospect of finding either goodness, or beauty, or 
truth. Feeling is a very important part of life. Only a cari- 
cature of philosophy represents it as unfeeling, or the philos- 
opher as a man without human emotions; nevertheless 
philosophy cannot recognize feeling as a test of truth, except 
of the truth that the feeling exists. The most intense and 
satisfying feeling is not the slightest ground for inferring 
the truth of the belief that the feeling asserts to be true. 
Feelings often are sound, and often lead us to truth, un- 
doubtedly; but just as often they lead us to error and evil. 
Feeling cannot stand alone. 


§ 8. SENSE EXPERIENCE AS CRITERION 


Leaving the vagaries of feeling, the mind, in its search 
for something that can be depended on, is greatly encour- 
aged when it finds the data of sense-experience. Sensation is 
a stable factor in life, independent of our will or whim, and 
giving us contact with outside reality. Here appears to be 
a field in which the merits of the social and the individual 
points of view are combined; on which the sciences have 
built; to which every-day life constantly makes appeal, and 
about which we have a clear-cut assurance. We may doubt 
the validity of our instincts, or of the customs and traditions 
of society, or of the consensus gentium at certain points and 
still retain our standing in polite society; but if we seriously 
doubt the evidence of our senses, men look strangely at us 
and segregate us from our fellows. Here, if anywhere, the 
consensus gentium is unambiguous: all men agree that if 
we perceive by our senses a red apple on the tree in the 
orchard, there really is a red apple on the tree in the 
orchard. 

That my sensations are facts of experience there can be 


SENSE EXPERIENCE 43 


no doubt; all thinking has to start with the immediate facts 
of consciousness as given; and to deny that I perceive the 
various qualities of color, sound, and the rest is to deny that 
I have experience and that there is anything to think about. 
If any one were mad enough to question the fact of sense 
experience, he would thereby have rendered it logically 
impossible even to use sense experience in communicating 
with others, or to appeal to that experience as something that 
can be mentioned. If, then, we are to be reasonable, we 
must start with the given facts, among which the facts of 
sense are obvious, solid and indubitable. Nothing else could 
be the criterion of the existence of a sensation than the 
sensation itself; if you perceive the sense datum, no argu- 
ment could increase or diminish the certainty of your per- 
ception; and if you do not perceive it, no argument could 
call it into being. It stands and falls in its own right; is it 
not then an adequate criterion of truth? 

Doubtless our experience of the sensation is our only 
criterion of the fact that we experience it; but it is doubtful 
whether sensations can be trusted to tell us the truth about 
anything more than the obvious and barren fact that they 
are experienced. Nevertheless, an impressive array of great 
minds has held that sensation is the last court of appeal. 
Notably is this true of empiricists of the sensationalist or 
positivist school, of which Hume, Comte, and Mill are great 
representatives. These men have argued that what was 
given in sense was certain; what could not be perceived by 
the senses was unverifiable speculation, worthy only of being 
consigned to the flames. It is, however, significant that none 
of these thinkers has held with rigid consistency to the sen- 
sationalistic principle; into the thought of all of them has 
crept at some point a recognition of objects that it is impos- 
sible to perceive by the senses, such, for example, as con- 


44 TRUTH AND ERROR 


sciousness. Hence, in spite of the plausible arguments for 
sensation as a test of truth, it is important to consider its 
defects as a criterion. 

If sensation alone be the test of truth, every sensation 
would, of course, be equally valid, for each sensation would 
be the test of its own truth. But we all believe that our 
senses sometimes err, and that occasionally things are not 
as they seem. The red apple on the tree in the orchard is 
doubtless there, but the oasis seen in a mirage is not. Rail- 
road tracks appear to converge and meet at a distance, but 
no one believes that they actually meet. The sensations of 
the color-blind are supposed to be misleading. Illusions and 
hallucinations of sense are recognized by all psychologists. 
Ancient skepticism early directed attention to the untrust- 
worthiness of the senses.* Sensation, then, is not in itself a 
criterion; but needs to be supplemented, reviewed and criti- 
cized by the work of thought. Sensationalists have generally 
seen the necessity of admitting this fact, although they have 
not been willing to admit its implications. 

How, then, am I to be sure that a state of consciousness 
is a valid sensation, and not a misleading and merely sub- 
jective imagination or hallucination? Psychological experi- 
ments have shown that it is not always possible introspec- 
tively to distinguish between sensation and imagination. As 
Kant in a famous passage? has remarked, “A hundred real 
dollars do not contain any more than a hundred possible 
dollars.” The only final means of distinguishing between 
the possible and the real, the imaginary and the perceived, 
is to take more than the given perceptions into account. 

The fact that we ourselves or other persons have sensations 


1See Weber, History of Philosophy, pp. 153-156. 
2In his discussion of the ontological proof of the existence of God, 
Critique of Pure Reason. 


SENSE EXPERIENCE 45 


cannot itself be verified by sensation. There is no sense 
organ or function whereby I can have a sensation of my own 
sensation of blue. How much less can I have a sensation 
of the sensations going on in the minds of others! If, then, 
I believe that such sensations exist, it is because I have used 
some criterion beyond my immediate sensations them- 
selves. 

There are certain other facts besides sensation itself that 
cannot reasonably be denied, but that can never be verified 
by sense perception. A few illustrations will suffice. We 
certainly believe that real things, such as houses, streets, 
automobiles, exist in some sense whether we are perceiving 
them or not. The existence of the object is something more 
than our perception of it; existence itself, then, can never 
be perceived by the senses, Further, the mind is so con- 
structed that it constantly uses universals; we speak of all 
triangles, all falling bodies, all space; without universals, 
scientific law would tumble into a mass of ruins. Yet nothing 
is so clear as the fact that it is impossible, as Aristotle says, 
to have a sense-perception of the universal;* for the sense- 
perception is here and now, while the universal is what is 
true always, and everywhere and for all (at least for all 
right-thinking minds). Further, self-consciousness, an 
every-day experience, is incapable of being tested by sen- 
sation; for the experience of being a self is an inner fact 
that could never be reached by any sense organ, and no 
serious thinker has ever pretended that he had a sensation 
of selfhood. Indeed, Hume’s failure to find the self on em- 
pirical principles was to him a source of great difficulty.’ 


1 Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, 1. 31 (87b, 30f.). 

2 He frankly says, “All my hopes vanish when I come to explain the 
principles that unite our successive perceptions in our thought or conscious- 
ness.” A Treatise of Human Nature, Vol. II, Appendix, p. 319 (Every- 
man’s Library edition). 


46 TRUTH AND ERROR 


Finally we may mention ideals and values of whatever sort. 
If an ideal has any truth, that truth could never be tested by 
sensation; for the very nature of an ideal is to judge and 
control our life of sensation rather than to be judged or con- 
trolled by it. 

Sensation, then, is evidently not a test of all truth; and, 
important as sensation is, we must seek further for a crite- 
rion which can test either the meaning of an experience in 
which sensations occur, or the relations between sensations 
and those aspects of consciousness which are not sensation. 


89. INTUITION AS CRITERION 


Sensation has one substantial fact in its favor; it is, as 
we saw, an immediate, undeniable experience. There can 
be no question about the factual character of an immediate 
experience; what is given, is given. It is immediately appre- 
hended as being there; to doubt that I experience what I 
experience is a self-contradiction that renders all thought im- 
possible. 

But sensation is not the only immediate certainty. That 
I am self-conscious, that I take attitudes toward other selves, 
and that my mind thinks in terms of universals,—all this is 
just as immediately certain as is sense-perception. The 
Latin word for perception is intuitio; hence, all immediate 
perception is called intuition. Sensation is a kind of intui- 
tion, so that we often speak of sense-intuition, but, as we 
have seen, it is not the only kind. The term has been used 
with quite different meanings by different writers according 
to the kinds or aspects of intuition in which they were espe- 
cially interested; in Spinoza and Bergson, for example, the 
specific meaning assigned to the term by the author must be 


INTUITION 47 


carefully watched. Despite the differences in usage, how- 
ever, it is safe to say that a common element is always pres- 
ent, namely, reference to what is immediately given in con- 
sciousness, immediately experienced or perceived. 

Not every thinker that recognizes the philosophical impor- 
tance of intuition would regard it as the criterion of truth. 
For some, an intuitive insight or experience is the goal of 
all thinking and living, but not the every-day test of truth. 
Yet intuition is regarded by many as the final criterion by 
which truth is to be distinguished from error. Not poets and 
lovers alone appeal to their intuitions as the last word; 
mathematicians, most rigorous of thinkers, make the same 
appeal. All demonstration in mathematics is usually said to 
rest back on certain principles known as axioms; the axioms 
cannot be proved, but are said to be self-evident.?,_ Axioms 
afford a fixed starting-point for thought and render deduc- 
tive science possible. Many have held that moral and reli- 
gious axioms are also intuitively certain. 

There are, then, reasons for believing that in intuition 
we have at length found the criterion for which we are 
searching. But here, also, we must be on our guard against 
error. Shall we, or shall we not, accept intuition as the 
test, or as an important test, of truth? 

In answering this question, it is important first of all to 
make the distinction between intuition as an item of con- 
scious experience and the reference of the intuition to real- 
ity. The sensation of redness may, as we have seen, be 
called an intuition. The distinction which has just been 
mentioned would, then, be between the redness as a state of 


1 Mrs. Stephens’ book, The Misuse of Mind, is a clear and sympathetic 
account of Bergson’s usage. 

2 Many mathematicians are extremely cautious about asserting the 
truth of axioms. 


48 TRUTH AND ERROR 


consciousness and the reference of this redness to an apple. 
If I have an intuition of redness, there can be no doubt of 
the fact that I have the intuition; but there may be doubt 
about whether the intuition is a perception of a real red 
apple.t. The intuition may be a dream or hallucination and 
not what is called a veridical (that is, true) perception. 
Further, it is very difficult to be sure just when we have 
a fundamental intuition. In a broad and loose sense, all 
consciousness is intuitive, for we perceive, apprehend, or 
intuit every conscious state or process. But it is customary 
to distinguish between truth or belief arrived at through 
reasoning, which is said to be mediate, and that reached 
by intuition, which is immediate. An ultimate or funda- 
mental intuition, then, is one which is not to be deduced 
from any other proposition, but is seen to be true of itself 
and in its own right. Now we face the question: Is every- 
thing which is “seen” to be true in its own right really 
true? If all our non-deducible intuitions were as serviceable 
as the axioms of geometry, the prospect for finding much 
truth by intuition would be more alluring than it is. The 
trouble is that the woods are full of intuitions that are just 
as incapable of being deduced from anything else, and just 
as immediately certain to him who entertains them as any 
axiom of geometry. For many intuitions, people are put into 
hospitals for the insane; for others, they are acclaimed as 
poets or inventors; for others, are recorded as founders of 
religions. An intuition may be a flash of genius, a sudden 
insight into truth or beauty, a message from the divine; or 
it may be symptomatic of a decaying intellect or of mental 
Incapacity. In other words, if you take an intuition by 


1This statement only apparently contradicts that in §8 regarding the 
percept of the apple. There may be doubt about whether we are really 
perceiving an apple; but if we really perceive, there is no doubt about the 
apple’s being there. 


CORRESPONDENCE 49 


itself, no matter how self-evident it may appear, there is no 
way of distinguishing a true intuition from a false one. 
Criticism of intuition as a criterion of truth should not 
be misinterpreted to mean a denial that there are ultimate 
principles or axioms from which inferences may be drawn, 
but which themselves cannot be deduced from anything else. 
Assuredly there are such principles, as mathematics shows. 
The point of our present discussion is only that there is no 
way of telling the rightful heir from the pretender on the 
basis of pretensions alone; and that the claims of any intui- 
tion must be investigated in the light of the rest of our 
experience and thinking. Intuition, then, while not a test 
of truth, may well be a source of truth. The seer and the 
poet, the man of vision and insight, often give us truth 
that is priceless without being able to tell why their truth 
is true, or why it is superior to the error of some other 
seer. Every step of our investigation thus makes more 
apparent the need of a philosophical criterion of truth. 


S10. CORRESPONDENCE AS CRITERION 


In our discussion of the nature of truth at the beginning 
of this chapter, we noted that truth may be defined as cor- 
respondence with reality. If this be the nature of truth, 
some philosophers have said, what is simpler and better 
justified than to employ this definition as our criterion? An 
idea or judgment would then be true when it corresponds with 
the reality to which it refers. A map is true if it corre- 
sponds to the actual shape of the region that it represents; 
a poem committed to memory is true of the original if it 
corresponds, word for word, to the poem printed in the book. 

Correct the correspondence notion may be as a definition of 
truth; it is futile as a criterion in most cases. How can I 


50 TRUTH AND ERROR 


compare my idea with the reality? Such comparison could 
occur only if my idea and the reality were both immediately 
certain and capable of being compared with each other. 
If the reality of things were accessible to me, in the same 
sense as are ideas, and knowledge of reality were thus 
immediately certain, in the same sense as are ideas, we 
should then already be in possession of a true knowledge of 
reality, and we could easily adjust our ideas to it. But if 
all that we have is our experience, it is impossible for us to 
compare ideas, which are part of experience, with any reality 
other than our experience. We cannot compare ideas with 
things. We can only compare ideas with other ideas or 
experiences. We cannot compare our idea of the State 
House in Boston with the State House itself. We can only 
compare the ideas we had about that building when we were 
elsewhere with the sensations and perceptions that we have 
when we are, as we believe, in its presence. 

It is now evident why, at the outset of the previous para- 
graph, it was said that the correspondence theory is futile 
as a criterion in most cases; for, impossible as it is to com- 
pare ideas with reality, it is one of the simplest of processes 
to compare ideas with each other. It is what we are doing 
all the time. We might be tempted to say that correspond- 
ence of ideas with each other is the criterion of truth; but 
it is evident that what has been proposed as the correspond- 
ence theory is not true, and it is better to avoid terminology 
associated with an error. Hence, although perhaps near to 
what we seek, we shall look further. 


SII. PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES AS CRITERION 


The inadequacy of the foregoing proposed criteria is 
widely recognized, Philosophy has made vigorous attempts 


PRAGMATISM 51 


to discover a more excellent way. One of the most recent 
and influential of these attempts is pragmatism, certainly one 
of the most influential in the United States. It is a many- 
sided movement, not confined to any particular philosophical 
problem nor to the field of technical philosophy. No at- 
tempt will be made in this chapter to discuss pragmatism as 
a whole; nor is there room for more than a brief sketch 
of the pragmatic criterion of truth. Nevertheless, since it 
is a great contemporary movement, pragmatism will be 
treated more at length than most of the proposed criteria. 

What, then, is pragmatism? Primarily it is a criterion 
of truth. Speaking broadly and ambiguously at first, we 
may say that it is the theory that the test of the truth of 
all thinking is to be found in its practical consequences. 
If the practical consequences are satisfactory, the thinking 
is said to be true. This statement is, however, far from 
clear. Just what is meant by practical and by satisfactory? 
What seems practical to the burglar seems impractical to 
the moralist; what is satisfactory to the organic chemist is 
probably unsatisfactory to the college freshman. There are, 
on the whole, among pragmatists four outstanding concep- 
tions of the meaning of these terms, practical and satis- 
factory... These may be called the humanistic, the experi- 
mental, the nominalistic, and the biological types. The 
types, to a degree, overlap. The same man may hold to 
more than one of them; but the classification will serve to 
bring preliminary order into a chaos of opinions. 

The humanistic type is popularly best known. It holds 
that what satisfies human nature as a whole is true.” The 


1[mportant material on the origins of pragmatism will be found in 
the Jour. Phil. for December 21, 1916, which is largely devoted to Mr. 
Charles S. Peirce. See also Peirce, Chance, Love and Logic. 

2 When special stress is laid on truth as the fulfillment of human pur- 
poses, this type may be called teleological. 


52 TRUTH AND ERROR 


name humanism comes from the English pragmatist, Schiller, 
a prolific and brilliant writer. Much of James’s pragmatism 
was humanistic. The humanist would say, Whatever ful- 
fills my purposes, satisfies my desires, develops my life, is 
true. This assertion readily lends itself to caricature; for 
it is notorious how many of our desires cannot be fulfilled; 
how many of them, when fulfilled, lead to error and evil, 
instead of to truth. But if emphasis be laid on life as a 
whole, the position becomes more plausible; and it makes a 
wide popular appeal in that it can easily be grasped, and 
lends itself to ready support of religious beliefs. Postponing 
all criticism to a later point, we shall proceed to define the 
other types. 

The experimental* type of pragmatism is based on the 
laboratory methods of the sciences. It says, simply, What- 
ever can be experimentally verified is true; or, more simply 
still, What works is true. This conception of truth is 
employed by the sciences; moreover, if the term experiment 
be taken widely enough, this method would appear to have 
its application in every field. Can man fly inthe air? What 
are the properties of radium? Is the Einstein theory true? 
Does God answer prayer? Is life worth living? Whatever 
Our question, the reply would be one and the same, Try the 
necessary experiments and find out; experientia docet. 
There is no doubt that pragmatism in this form is voicing 
an important idea. 

The type that we have called nominalistic may be regarded 
as a sub-form of the experimental type. Whenever we per- 
form an experiment, we are looking for results. The experi- 
mental attitude is expectant, inquiring. Now, say many 
pragmatists, any idea is simply a prediction of certain ex- 
pected, possible results. I say “red-apple-in-orchard,” and 


1 See the discussion of experimental method in Chapter I. 


PRAGMATISM 53 


mean that if I go to the orchard I shall see the red apple 
that I meant. These results are said by the nominalistic 
pragmatist always to be concrete particulars; nothing gen- 
eral, universal or abstract. A school of medieval philos- 
ophers held that universalia sunt nomina,* and hence were 
called nominalists. So too the pragmatist of this stripe 
(such as James) asserts that universals are mere names for 
the particulars to which they may lead. When I say ‘“Man,” 
I do not mean any such monstrosity as a universal man or 
man-in-general; I mean only that the traits asserted of 
“Man” will be found in the actual, concrete men with whom 
I deal. If the traits are not there, the idea is not true. 
This kind of pragmatism is closely affiliated with sense 
experience as a criterion, for the particulars that we meet are 
mostly sense data (including, as James emphasizes, their 
relations). 

The last type, the biological, is in the ascendancy at the 
present time. By this type, of which the outstanding 
representative is John Dewey of Columbia University, the 
pragmatic test is found in the function of thought in adapt- 
ing the human organism to its environment. Biology has 
taught us to regard man as a psycho-physical organism; 
thought is an instrument for adjustment in any situation 
where difficulties or problems have arisen. ‘To adapt an 
illustration from the Jutroduction to Reflective Thinking by 
Columbia Associates in Philosophy,’ we begin the day with 
habitual acts that require no thought (and so do not raise 
the issue of truth). But suppose we receive a letter in the 
morning mail containing a question that demands decision. 
We must then make up our mind what ought to be done; 
and this process is thinking. The truth of our thinking then 


1“Universals are names.” See Chapter V. 
2 The suggestion is on pp. 2-3. Cf. Dewey, How We Think. 


54 TRUTH AND ERROR 


would consist in the success with which it leads the organ- 
ism to do that which will best answer the question. Because 
it regards thought as an instrument of adjustment, this view 
is often called instrumentalism. Because it was founded at 
the University of Chicago when Dewey was there, and be- 
cause it is still growing at that university, it is often ascribed 
to the ‘Chicago School.” 

It is evident that so rich and fruitful a movement as prag- 
matism, with its influences not on philosophy alone, but on 
religious thinking, educational theory and practice, social 
and political theory, is worthy of careful study; it is also 
evident that there must be “something in it” for it to win the 
adherence of many conspicuous thinkers. Further, no phil- 
osophical idea of recent times has been so popular among 
the general public. It is said that James’s Pragmatism was 
for some time the most widely circulated non-fiction book in 
the New York Public Library, and President Nicholas Mur- 
ray Butler of Columbia has described it as the philosophy, 
“Which, when unfolded to the man in the street, causes him 
to howl with delight, because he at last understands things.” 
(Philosophy, p. 24). Let us, then, consider what may be 
said for pragmatism as a test of truth. 

First of all, it is clear that pragmatism is, in certain re. 
spects, morally wholesome. It is free from prejudice, con. 
crete, sincere, unpretentious (when true to itself); and it 
thus creates an atmosphere in which it seems probable that 
truth might be found. As we have indicated, it is based on 
the laboratory method of science, which has led to most of 
such truth as humanity possesses. All types of pragmatism 
are open-minded, favorable to the freedom and plasticity of 
thought; conducive to growth in the apprehension of truth. 

Further, it appears to be comprehensive,—to be a test 
that can apply to all sorts and conditions of truth. Indeed, 


PRAGMATISM 55 


it is evident that, if the account of the philosophical spirit 
in Chapter I was correct, pragmatism performs an important 
and genuinely philosophical function. All of experience, and 
precisely the concrete, every-day facts that dreamy philos- 
ophers have been wont to ignore, must be taken into ac- 
count. Philosophy must find a place for every human and 
experimental and particular and biological fact to which 
pragmatism calls attention. Results count; he reckons ill 
who leaves them out! As Galloway says, “That which works 
continuously for good must be in harmony with the nature 
of man and of the world in which he is placed.””* Yet there 
are numerous difficulties in the way of accepting pragmatism, 
difficulties so serious as to lead many to reject the pragmatic 
theory. 

Perhaps the chief objection to pragmatism is that it is 
vague and ambiguous in its meaning.” The four types of 
pragmatism,—humanistic, experimental, nominalistic, and 
biological—are in danger, not merely of overlapping, but 
even of contradicting each other. What is true from the 
humanistic standpoint (e. g., immortality) may be false from 
the nominalistic; for at no particular time in this world 
or in the world to come could one’s idea of endless life lead 
one up to the particulars which it denotes. What is experi- 
mentally true might be biologically useless for adjustment. 
Pragmatism’s attempt to define the practical and the satis- 
factory has served to bring into stronger relief the ambiguity 
of those concepts. Practical is a relative term; anything 
that serves a given end (biological life, psychological repose, 
agreement with ideals) may be described as practical rela- 
tive to that end. The question before the house is then, 


1 Galloway, Philosophy of Religion, p. 364. 
2The ambiguity of pragmatism is emphasized by numerous critics, 
including Creighton, Royce, Lovejoy, and Fite. 


56 TRUTH AND: ERROR 


What is the nature of the end that is served by true ideas? 
Pragmatism appears to lack a clear definition of that end.’ 

It is also evident that untrue ideas may lead to results 
which, in the long run, appear to be practical. Christian 
Science and Roman Catholicism, for example, are both sys- 
tems of belief that have led to practical results; yet both can- 
not be true at the same time unless the universe is a mad- 
house. It helps us no whit to say that the results are due 
to the truth in each system; for, since each system is be- 
lieved entire by its adherents, the results furnish no criterion 
of what parts of either or both systems may be true.’ 

It is equally evident that some true ideas are not pragmat- 
ically verifiable in the nominalistic or the biological sense. 
If there be such a fact as self-consciousness, my idea about 
your self-consciousness can never lead to the concrete fact 
that is your self-consciousness. It is also difficult to see how | 
any biological adjustment of my organism to its environ- 
ment can test a non-biological fact like self-consciousness. 
If the pragmatist urges that the humanistic and experimental 
types may take self-consciousness into account (as Schiller 
most emphatically does), the reply is that it is precisely these 
types that are most vague, ambiguous and confused in their 
meaning. Pragmatism may include the untrue or exclude the 
true. Human desires may be satisfied just as well to believe 
in fairies as to believe in self-consciousness. Or, to take 
Royce’s different illustration, no reasonable mind can doubt 
that “the totality of the experience of many men really ex- 
ists”; yet this fact would appear to be beyond the reach 
of pragmatic verification. 


1 For a pragmatic attempt to meet this charge, see A. W. Moore, “Some 
Lingering Misconceptions of Instrumentalism,” Jour. Phil., 17 (1920), 
514-519. 

2 Royce’s famous “Pragmatist’s Oath” (The Philosophy of Loyalty, p. 
331) pokes fun at the conception of the true as the practical or expedient. 


PRAGMATISM 57 


The biological type is to-day the most popular of all 
forms of pragmatism in philosophical circles. Yet it is in- 
adequate. A philosophical criterion of truth must not be 
narrow in its range or limited to one class of truth only. 
It must be inclusive of all types of experience, all objects 
of knowledge and belief. To pick out one of the special 
sciences as the source of the criterion of all truth is arbitrary 
procedure. If at one time biology is the fashionable science, 
at another it is physics, or mathematics, or psychology; but 
philosophy ought to be superior to the whims of fashion, and 
should allow no special science to usurp her rightful seat. 
Biology, as a special science, leaves many important facts out 
of account. It makes no attempt to prove or disprove the 
law of falling bodies, or the Pythagorean theorem, or the 
principles of democracy. A pragmatist like Moore, in the 
article mentioned above, aware of the limitations of biology 
as ordinarily understood, tells us that the appeal is to “a 
transfigured and glorified biology, loaded with all the con- 
scious and social values which are denied it by those who find 
it such a bugbear” (p. 516). One might wonder whether 
biologists would recognize their child! If biology is equiva- 
lent to the study of all experience and all values, it doubtless 
contains, hidden somewhere, the criterion of truth. But is 
it not time to call a halt on the unlimited pretensions, not of 
the sciences, but of some men of science? ‘There is a tend- 
ency on the part of sociologists to make sociology cover 
everything; the moralist makes ethics everything; the psy- 
chologist makes psychology everything,—and this is true 
of each subdivision of psychology,—normal, abnormal, social, 
and so on. The pretentious claims made for each special 
point of view lack the justification of the “strife of systems” 
in philosophy; for the former are based on a narrow outlook; 
while the latter arises from the difficulties of an inclusive 


58 TRO AN DYE RE OR 


or synoptic standpoint. A biological pragmatism, then, is 
to be condemned for its narrowness; either it leaves out of 
account the points of view of other sciences, of universals, 
of values and ideals or else it approaches them from its 
single and restricted standpoint, which precludes a complete 
and adequate interpretation of their nature. The German 
Vaihinger,* who makes much of the biological functions of 
ideas, is more logical than the Anglo-American pragmatists. 
He points out the biological significance of our fundamental 
ideas, but is bold enough to assert that their biological utility 
is no proof of their truth; we must act and think, he holds, 
“as if” these ideas were true, knowing all the while that 
they are only “fictions.” Thus biological pragmatism issues 
in skepticism and destroys itself as criterion of truth. 

Pragmatism remains a very significant movement, and one 
worthy of thorough investigation; but it is neither clear nor 
self-consistent nor inclusive. It calls attention to important 
aspects of experience that should not be ignored, and thus 
contributes to philosophy; but it neglects important aspects, 
and thus refutes itself. 


§ 12. COHERENCE AS CRITERION 


There remains to be discussed the coherence criterion 
which, in one form or another, has been recognized and used 
throughout the history of human thought. If instinct, cus- 
tom, tradition, the consensus gentium, and feeling are all 
untrustworthy; if sense experience and intuition must be 
tested by a higher criterion; if correspondence fails because 
we cannot compare ideals with “reality,” but only with other 
ideas; if pragmatism fails because of its ambiguity in de- 
fining the end relative to which true ideas are practical, 

1 Die Philosophie des Als-Ob, translated as The Philosophy of “As If.” 


COHERENCE 59 


can the coherence criterion succeed where all others have 
failed? 

Coherence means systematic consistency. The meaning 
of the term consistency is given with the very fact of intel- 
ligent consciousness. To be conscious means not merely to 
be aware of a particular content, but also to be aware of its 
relations. One of the clearest of relations is that of con- 
tradiction, as is evidenced by the decisive “‘no, no” of an 
infant in the early stages of speech-development. The logical 
law of contradiction asserts that a thing cannot both be and 
not be at the same time;* anything excludes the possibility 
of its contradictory being true at the same time. Different 
things may be as different as you please; the same thing at 
different times may be cold or hot; at the same time it may 
be cold to one person and hot to another,—and all this with- 
out the slightest contradiction. But the same spatial object 
cannot be both here and somewhere else at the same time; 
one act of one person cannot be both good and bad. Or 
if we attempt to say that the act is, “in a sense,” good, and, 
“in a sense,” bad, it is evident that there are two different 
senses involved, and hence there is no contradiction. Even 
clearer than the law of contradiction is the law of identity, 
which merely asserts that whatever you are talking about, 
you must mean that and not something else. Logically it 
is expressed in the form A is A. Whatever conforms to 
the laws of contradiction and identity, then, is said to be 
self-consistent, capable, as the Latin means, of standing to- 
gether. 

Wherever there is inconsistency there must be error. If 
you are talking about a Baltimore oriole, and suddenly call 
an English sparrow a Baltimore oriole, something is wrong; 


1In logic this is expressed in the formula, A cannot be both B and 
not-B. 


60 TRUTH AND ERROR 


and it is wrong because one use of terms destroys the other. 
Real inconsistency may be called the suicide of conscious 
life; it annihilates itself. If I say, “John is a man; but John 
is not a man,” either I am using the term man biologically 
in the first place and morally in the second; or else the latter 
part of my statement destroys the meaning of the first, so 
that I really say nothing at all. Not all inconsistency is so 
glaring as that of the simple illustrations just given. In the 
thinking of every human being there are doubtless inconsist- 
encies, essentially just as absurd as those, yet not so clearly 
present to the mind as they. 

It is often said that the law of consistency is merely 
formal and barren. In a technical sense it doubtless is 
formal, but it is permitted to doubt whether it is barren. If 
any human being could eliminate all the inconsistencies from 
his thinking he would have moved far away from the errors 
to which the race of men is subject; perhaps he would have 
found Truth! It remains true, however, that the law of 
consistency, as stated, is formal. It tells us in general that 
all things must stand together; it does not tell us specifically 
how, or where, or why they are to stand. The truth must 
be self-consistent; every one will grant this. Yet not every 
self-consistent proposition is true. How, then, are we to 
sift the wheat from the chaff? Further definition is neces- 
sary before this question may be answered. 

Several conceptions of consistency are possible, of which 
we shall mention the most important. Consistency might 
mean a series of facts, each as unique and individual and 
unrelated to others as you please as long as they do not con- 
tradict each other. Such consistency might be a welter of 
confusion, a chaos without rime or reason. If this were all 
that consistency meant, it would not be a useful criterion 
of truth; for, if there is any truth, it is surely not to be 


COHERENCE 61 


found in a jumble of facts whose only merit is that they do 
not destroy each other. 

Or it might mean the sort of deductive consistency that 
is contemplated by the method of rationalism. This has 
already been criticized... Experience abounds in concrete 
empirical facts that cannot, so far as we see, be deduced 
from anything else; and if only that were to be accepted 
as true which is capable of being deduced from some ulti- 
mate principle, we should be in the embarrassing position 
of having to deny truth to the great majority of concrete 
facts; not to sense qualities alone, but also to most other 
psychological facts. Our criterion of truth should not be 
in the absurd position of failing to interpret the facts of 
experience. 

Consistency might mean the organization of those con- 
crete facts, which the deductive interpretation ignored. This 
might be called empirical consistency, and would result from 
the application of what, in Chapter I, was called the scientific 
method. As we saw in the previous discussion, this method 
is in great danger of leaving many facts out of account and 
of ignoring important aspects of the deductive structure of 
experience. 

Consistency may finally be interpreted as coherence, in 
accordance with the synoptic method. By coherence is 
meant, literally, “sticking together.”” The coherence criterion 
looks beyond the mere self-consistency of propositions to a 
comprehensive, synoptic view of all experience. It takes 
into account all our judgments, as a connected, “sticking- 
together” whole. The coherence theory would then offer the 
following criterion: Any judgment is true, if it is both self- 
consistent and coherently connected with our system of 
judgments as a whole. Thus the working test of truth is 

1Jn Chapter I. 


62 TRUTH AND ERROR 


our maximum coherent system of judgments; by “maxi- 
mum” is meant including in the most coherent way the 
whole range of our judgments about experience. Yet this 
“working test” is not static, for the system needs revisions 
in the interests of improved coherence, and new experiences 
of fact, which are constantly pouring in on us, whether we 
like it or not. Some principles (such as that of coherence 
itself) are of course more fundamental than others in the 
system: and there is no reason to assume that any particular 
item of present “truth” is false unless grounds can be shown 
for regarding it as somehow inconsistent with the system of 
truth, or something else as more adequately coherent. We 
are right in accepting any judgment as the best truth, 7. e., 
the best account of reality as it is, that we can get, if it is 
not contradicted by any judgment in the system we accept 
as true, and we are able to find connections between it and 
the rest of truth:—the more connections, the better. It 
often happens, however, that an entire system of old truth 
has to be revised in the interests of new fact; the view of 
the world as flat had to be given up and thought adjusted to 
the idea of a round world as soon as people became convinced 
that one could sail around the world. 

The criterion of truth as systematic coherence has been 
consciously or unconsciously employed by many of the 
greatest thinkers from Plato to the present time. Hegel 
gave it classical form and made it the basis of his system 
of absolute idealism. We are not, however, now concerned 
with its metaphysical implications, but only with its func- 
tion as a test of truth. As such a test, the theory appears 
impregnable. On what other grounds than coherence or in- 
coherence are we justified in accepting or rejecting a given 
belief? If a belief contradicts another belief, of course there 
is error somewhere, and we locate the error in the belief 


COHERENCE 63 


that fails to connect with the system that most coherently 
interprets experience. If it be asserted that the world was 
created in 4004 B. C., and it also be asserted that the Heidel- 
berg man dates from 100,000 B. C., no acute intelligence is 
required to detect the presence of incoherence and error. 
Where the error will be located depends on the system which 
is of maximum coherence. 

Now all this seems so elementary, so obvious, that the 
reader may wonder why the point is labored so insistently. 
Well, fundamental thinking will never be done if you are to 
accept as true whatever appears to be obvious; it is obvious 
that the earth stands still while the sun goes around it,— 
obvious, but not true. In the present instance there are ad- 
ditional reasons for caution. We are dealing with the instru- 
ment that will be used in all our later thinking; and it hap- 
pens that one of the most characteristic traits of recent 
philosophy is a challenging of the coherence theory. Intellect 
is inferior to intuition, says Bergson; coherence gives us a 
block universe that ignores the variety of concrete life, says 
pragmatism; coherence is contradictory to the true scientific 
and philosophical method of analysis, says neo-realism; 
coherence is associated with absolute idealism, which on 
many grounds is to be rejected, says a chorus of numerous 
schools of thought. We shall therefore consider some of the 
objections most frequently voiced, and shall inquire what 
the theory has to say on its own behalf. 

(1) OBJECTIONS TO THE COHERENCE THEORY. It is 
said that the use of this criterion will lead only to relative 
truth. Any system we can formulate admittedly needs revi- 
sion; contradictions emerge, new facts clamor for admission; 
truth never reaches the stage of completeness and finality in 
human thinking. There is a never-ending quest with an 
ever-widening horizon. Where, then, is the place of the real 


64 TRUTH AND ERROR 


truth in such a system? Only in the completed attainment 
of the ideal of an all-inclusive system; that is, only in the 
Absolute. The Absolute is Truth; “our little systems have 
their day” and cease, because they are not adequately true. 
It is even held that the coherence theory leads to skepticism; 
for the best that we now possess will have to be so utterly 
revised in the light of the Absolute that our present truth 
is but error, our present good, but evil. Thus does our 
cherished criterion turn to dust and ashes in our hands. 

This objection is serious, but it is not unanswerable. It 
is manifestly true, whatever our criterion may be, that we 
know in part. No criterion can avoid this common fate 
of humankind; the pragmatic least of all, whose new truths 
arrive with every breath we draw. Our apprehension of 
truth is growing; but it does not follow from this that the 
present stage of knowledge is worthless and untrue. The 
view of a distant star through a telescope does not mean that 
the view with the naked eye is not really a view of that star. 
It is simply a less adequate, less coherent view. Further, 
it may be pointed out that, even in our present vision of 
truth, there are elements which are absolute in the sense that 
they cannot be thought as untrue without self-contradiction. 
Such are the immediate data of experience, self-conscious- 
ness, and the validity of the laws of formal logic, and perhaps 
other principles. 

It is said that ideas may be consistent and yet be untrue. 
There is no contradiction with itself or with anything else 
in asserting that a five-legged philosopher exists in the fourth 
dimension. Yet very probably there is no such entity in the 
real universe. Such an objection, however, fails to do justice 
to the difference between mere consistency and coherence 
(or systematic consistency). The idea in question may be 
self-consistent enough, but it is not coherent with the rest 


COHERENCE 65 


of our thinking. It is not related to the facts. There is, as 
we say, no “evidence” for the existence of such a creature,— 
there is none but the loosest connection between it and the 
system of our experience as a whole. Hence this objection 
is far from refuting coherence; for the only possible way of 
judging any consistent idea or system to be untrue is by 
a more careful application of the principle of coherence. 

The neo-realists hold that coherence makes all truth inter- 
dependent and organically related; whereas there are, they 
say, many truths which are true independently and in their 
own right, whether anything else is true or not. A straight 
line is the shortest distance between two points, whether 
grass is green or not. This argument cannot be fully dis- 
cussed here; but at least this may be said: if the neo- 
realistic position be true, to any degree, the neo-realist 
is justified in making his assertion only after taking all 
judgments into account, finding that no true judgments con- 
tradict his view, and tracing all the connections he can dis- 
cover among the propositions that he regards as true. In 
other words, he really differs not with coherence as criterion, 
but with the use made of coherence by some philosophers. 

(2) REASONS FOR ACCEPTING THE COHERENCE CRI- 
TERION. The chief reasons for accepting the coherence 
criterion as valid may be stated briefly. 

It cannot be denied without being affirmed. If I say, 
coherence is not the test of truth, I must appeal either to 
contradiction and incoherence or to some form of coherence. 
And even if I appeal to the realm of contradiction and in- 
coherence, if I mean what I say and stick to it, I am again 
appealing to coherence. If I do not mean what I say, it is 
time to stop talking. 

It is the very essence of coherence to take all aspects of 
life, all experiences, all points of view, into account before 


66 TRUTH AND ERROR 


coming to its synoptic conclusion. ‘The other suggested 
criteria we found to suffer from the defect of incompleteness 
at one point or another; coherence recognizes the truth, but 
avoids the defects in each of the other theories. As Hegel 
viewed it, speculative thought should be a synthesis that 
somehow interprets and reconciles every thesis and antith- 
esis. 

It is the appeal to coherence alone that solves the riddles 
raised by the criticism of the other criteria. How may I 
be sure that my experience is sense perception and not hallu- 
cination? On what grounds does my conviction of intuitive 
certainty rest? What is the end that truly practical ideas 
must serve? A little reflection will show that coherence is 
the only satisfactory answer to all these questions. 

Its meaning is intelligible, and it is actually employed by 
every one, in so far as he thinks seriously. We are never 
sure that any object is real or any thought true until we 
see it married to the ideal of coherence. Hence, our love 
for law in science; hence, our hesitancy to accept many 
pretended facts, such as communications from departed 
spirits. ia 

We have reached the end of our study of criteria of truth. 
We have found no royal road to truth. If we are right in 
regarding coherence as the only valid test of truth, we are 
not justified in resting from our intellectual labors, having 
attained the goal, for a criterion of truth is something to be 
used in the toils and battles of the mind, testing all our 
thoughts and itself being constantly tested anew by the very 
use that is made of it. It is no simple matter to grasp our 
view of things as a whole, and to test every part by the whole 
and the whole by its adequate coherence. But he who de- 
mands that philosophy shall be simple cannot regard philos- 
ophy as an interpretation of life; for life is not simple. 


CHAPTER III 


HOW DO OUR IDEAS REFER TO 
REALITY? 


Sure THE PROBLEM OF EPISTEMOLOGY 


Let us suppose that the result of Chapter II is correct. 
Then coherence is the test of truth. The more completely 
coherent our interpretation of experience is, the more nearly 
it approaches the precise truth. But there are puzzling 
questions that rise from this conclusion. One set of these 
questions leads to what is known as the problem of knowl- 
edge. 

If I have been able to reach a coherent account of things, 
I feel justified in saying that I now know the truth about 
reality. I have knowledge in my grasp. But knowledge 
is an act of my mind; and that which I know is other than 
my knowledge of it. The North Pole, or relativity, or to- 
morrow, is not the same fact as my thought about it. Here, 
then, is a puzzle: How may I be certain that my ideas, even 
when they meet the requirements of the coherence (or any 
other) criterion, actually give me truth about the state of 
affairs in the real universe beyond me? The universe is 
so large, and I so insignificant, that it seems improbable that 
I should know reality as it is. 

In our criticisms of the various proposed criteria of truth, 
we found acrucial point when we came to the correspondence 
theory. In examining it, we held that our ideas cannot be 


compared with reality; for, whenever we know, or believe 
67 


68 IDEAS AND REALITY 


that we know, reality, it is always by means of our ideas. 
This reading of the knowledge situation has been vigorously 
questioned in recent times, but it is sufficiently disturbing 
to serve the purpose of a starting-point for us, as for most 
modern philosophy since Descartes. Here, then, is the 
problem: If my idea and the reality which I know be in- 
capable of being directly compared, how do we know that 
there is any reality beyond our immediate ideas? Or, sup- 
posing that there is a real universe, how can we know any- 
thing about it? 

There is a disposition in some quarters to make light of 
this problem. For plain common sense, there seems to be 
no problem. Ask the average man how he knows that he 
knows; he would probably reply, I know,—and there’s an 
end on’t! Many sophisticated minds would agree with him. 
They would point to the actual work of the sciences, which 
know a great deal without troubling themselves about the 
possibility of knowledge; or to the familiar fact that diges- 
tion goes on just as well, or even better, without preliminary 
inquiry into how it can take place. The philosopher, how- 
ever, is under an obligation that neither the man on the 
street nor the man in the laboratory has assumed; namely, 
the obligation to try to understand experience as a whole. 
Since the claim of ideas to give us knowledge of something 
beyond themselves is one of the most fundamental traits of 
experience, the philosopher cannot avoid the responsibility 
of inquiring into the nature and significance of the knowing 
process. 

In order to make clearer the question that we are to con- 
sider, let us state it in other forms. The criterion of truth, 
let us grant, has shown us something about the internal 
necessities of thought; is there any reason for believing that 
as I think so reality is? Why suppose that the structure of 


SKEPTICISM 69 


our thought, in a concrete system like the science of as- 
tronomy, is a correct account of the structure of the world? 
Can I find within my experience something that may be 
trusted to reveal reality and to relate me to the eternal 
meaning of the universe (if it have such a meaning)? 
Certain it is that if any clew to things as they are is to be 
found by a human being, that clew must be in human experi- » 
ence; for our experience’ is all that we have. Now such 
problems are studied by that part of philosophy that Ferrier 
first called epistemology, or theory of knowledge. We shall 
now discuss some of the important answers to the episte- 
mological problem. 


§2. SKEPTICISM 


The first answer that may be given is skepticism. Facing 
the contradictions among the best of the human race, the 
changes in so-called knowledge, and the enigmatic mystery of 
life, many men have thrown up their hands in despair, cry- 
ing, “Nothing can be known.” This position is historically 
known as skepticism. 

Skepticism assumes many different historical forms. The 
student is referred to the various manuals of the History 
of Philosophy for detailed information about particular 
thinkers and movements. It is our business to consider 
whether skepticism is valid; for if it is, it would be better 
to know the one truth that no truth is attainable than to 
deceive ourselves into believing many “truths” that are not 
true. 

In approaching any philosophical problem, the best 
method is to follow the example of Socrates and try to define 


1 The term experience is used, in its widest sense, of our entire conscious 
life: all our perceptions, memory, knowledge, belief, hope, reasoning, etc. 


70 IDE'AS?2AN DO REAL IY 


your terms. It often happens that explicit definition is 
the best proof of a truth or refutation of an error. Indeed, 
some think that the process of truth-finding is wholly a mat- 
ter of defining what you mean. 

The assertion that nothing can be known may mean just 
what it says; nothing whatever can be known about any 
subject. In this form, skepticism is clearly self-refuting, for 
if nothing can be known, skepticism cannot be known. Fur- 
ther, another person may, if he feels like it, set up the 
Opposite assertion, something can be known; and the utter 
skeptic has-no way of disproving it, for any arguments on 
his part would be a confession that something was known 
on which an argument could be based. The thorough-going 
denial of all knowledge is a dogma that destroys itself. As 
a wild mood of despair, it is comprehensible; but as a reae 
sonable view, it cannot even be formulated. 

All forms of skepticism that are not self-contradictory 
have to grant that there is some knowledge. The knowledge 
that they grant, and must grant, is about the immediate 
data of experience. Sensations we know; anything more 
than this, says the skeptic, is of the Evil One. Skepticism 
of this type has had a long and flourishing history, from 
Timon of Phlius to David Hume and Auguste Comte, and 
down to the present time. Comte has given to it the name 
of positivism. This term suggests at once that knowledge 
of the sense order is positive knowledge; and also that no 
other knowledge is positive. It asserts knowledge of the 
. world of sense experience and ignorance of the nature of the 
reality that manifests itself in that experience. What, then, 
shall we say of this kind of skepticism? 

Taken with full seriousness, positivistic skepticism is ex- 
posed to the peculiar fate of the solipsist. The solipsist 
holds that nothing exists save himself and his ideas; if he 


SE Pb eT SM 71 


seems to find things and persons outside himself, they are 
all really within him; responses of other human beings to 
his questions, tempest, and death are all alike creatures 
of his dream. Now, no one in his senses ever meant to be- 
lieve solipsism. It is impossible to hold consistently to the 
view that there is nothing except one’s sensation. Further, 
all the arguments of Chapter IT against the use of sensation 
as a criterion of truth may be cited in evidence here. Hence 
the positivistic skeptic must grant that when we talk about 
things and other persons than ourselves, we are talking 
about something other than our own sense perceptions. He 
must either admit or deny that he knows something about 
those objects. It seems peculiarly self-contradictory for posi- 
tivistic skeptics to write books addressed to the intelligence 
of other minds, minds which are denied existence, if their 
own logic is sound! If, then, this sort of skeptic is to avoid 
solipsism and utter incoherence, he must admit that other 
minds exist and that he knows something about them. 

There is no way of escaping the conclusion that any mind, 
if it is not to commit the intellectual suicide of uttering a 
series of nonsensical contradictions, must believe that some 
knowledge beyond the immediate data of sense is attainable; 
some knowledge of persons and things of yesterday and of 
last year, and of the trustworthiness of reason. 

In short, there appears to be no valid argument to prove 
that knowledge is impossible; on the contrary, all genuine 
thinking necessarily involves the belief that knowledge is 
attainable. This conclusion should not, however, lead the 
reader to consider skepticism stupid or unimportant. He 
who has never been overwhelmed with the unutterable vast- 
ness of the universe and the profound mystery of existence, 
will be able to look on the skeptic with cool indifference or 
with bigoted disdain; but he who has once felt the sting of 


72 IDEAS AND REALITY 


the problems of life will be able to appreciate the skeptic’s 
contribution to philosophy. 

The skeptic should teach us to distrust uncriticized or 
dogmatic assumptions; to learn that thinking, to be trust- 
worthy, must be fundamental; to make no pretentious claims 
to knowledge, where we have no knowledge. It should lead 
us to value the proper function of the doubt* which leads 
us to examine and question all our beliefs with a view to a 
conception of the truth that will stand investigation. It 
warns us against that perverse and obstinate doubt, which 
doubts for no reason, contradicts itself from moment to 
moment, yet persists in defiance of reason out of sheer un- 
willingness to think honestly. It points out the fact that 
there is much that we do not know (in which sense every 
sane person is an agnostic); that there is uncertainty in 
much pretended knowledge; and that final proof is acces- 
sible only to him who knows Absolute Truth. In many 
matters, probability is, as Carneades held, the guide of 
life. 

Skepticism, then, is a wholesome introduction to the prob- 
lems of epistemology; but for the living mind it cannot be 
the conclusion of all things. Current philosophy, some one 
has said, is “gnostic.” Knowledge forces its way into the 
citadel of doubt; and we must seek some other account of 
the facts than skepticism gives us. 


§3. “‘KANTIAN’’ SUBJECTIVISM 


A second possible answer to the epistemological problem 
(although not historically second) is the answer given by 
Kantian subjectivism, or, to be more precise, one given by 
a view frequently understood to be Kant’s, but actually rep- 

1See Royce, The Spirit of Modern Philosophy, pp. 71-74. 


SUBJECTIVISM 73 


resenting only one of several currents in his thinking.t. This 
view starts from the fact that we have made our starting- 
point in this chapter,—namely, that only consciousness is 
immediately given. All the objects that we know are objects 
of real or possible experience. Now, a chair or table as we 
experience it must conform to the laws of our mind, for 
nothing could be experienced by a mind if it did not con- 
form to the laws by which a mind can have experience. As 
we have seen, a mind cannot regard anything as true which 
is not self-consistent. Kant showed further that the mind 
treats as real only that system of objects which obeys the 
laws of the “forms of sensibility” (space and time) and the 
“categories of the understanding” (substance, causality, 
etc.). Hence, Kant argues, scientific knowledge is possible, 
and skepticism is refuted, for the laws of space, time, and 
causality must necessarily be true of every object that the 
mind recognizes as real. Kant holds that the “content” of 
knowledge comes from sensation, but insists that its “form” 
(the universal, or law-element) comes from the understand- 
ing. ‘Der Verstand ist selbst der Quell der Gesetze der 
Natur,” ? and ‘‘Gedanken ohne Inhalt sind leer, Anschau- 
ungen ohne Begriffe sind blind,’* are statements which 
should be taken in connection in order to understand Kant’s 
point. Sense intuition gives the data, but the understanding 
organizes the data, gives them form and law, and thus makes 
knowledge possible. 


1 For the student who desires to study Kant, M. W. Calkins’s treatment 
in The Persistent Problems of Philosophy, pp. 195-273 is a good intro- 
duction. A more elaborate treatment is found in Norman Kemp Smith, 
A Commentary to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. 

2“The understanding is itself the source of the laws of nature.” 
Krititk der reinen Vernunft, Ist ed., p. 127. 

8 Literally, “Thoughts without content are empty; intuitions without 
concepts are blind.” More freely, “Form without content is empty; con- 
tent without form is blind.” Kvritik der reinen Vernunft, p. 75, 2nd ed. 


74 LDEAS TAN DIR EALTIT Y 


Knowledge, then, is possible; but knowledge of what? * 
Knowledge only of phenomena, of things as they appear to 
us, in our minds, with laws that come from our minds rather 
than from the things! Things-in-themselves (Dinge an sich) 
we can never know; they are forever inaccessible to us. The 
knowability of things as they appear has as its reverse side 
the unknowability of things as they are. This doctrine may 
be called subjectivism, for it holds that we know only the 
content of experience and its laws; or phenomenalism, for it 
holds knowledge to be confined to phenomena,—things as 
they appear to us. As far as things-in-themselves are con- 
cerned, this theory of knowledge surrenders to skepticism, 
and, in the end, this second answer makes little advance over 
the first. 


§ 4. EPISTEMOLOGICAL MONISM 


A third answer was suggested historically by the view 
just described as Kantian subjectivism (although it had been 
held previously, as by Berkeley). If only actual and pos- 
sible experience can be known, and things-in-themselves are 
unknowable, what reason is there, the post-Kantian idealists 
asked, for preserving the otiose Dinge an sich in the museum 
of philosophical monstrosities? If experience alone be 
knowable and real, and nothing that is not in experience, at 
some conceivable time, could ever be mentioned or imagined, 
we have the following solution of the epistemological prob- 


1 Tt is important for the student to bear in mind that the brief exposition 
and criticism in the text do not pretend to do justice to Kant, whose 
many-sided intellect is one of the greatest in human history. It is a 
cheap and easy sport in these days to refute Kant with a gesture. The 
view described in the text as Kantian subjectivism has, however, been 
widely regarded as the essence of Kant’s thought. While the popular 
view misrepresents Kant, it is desirable for the beginner in philosophy to 
learn what is meant when Kantian subjectivism is referred to. 





MONISM 75 


lem: Knowledge is possible, because it is essentially imme- 
diate; the idea (experience) and the object (that is experi- 
enced) are one and the same fact. This view is called 
epistemological monism, for it holds that idea and object are 
one. When I see a table, says epistemological monism, there 
are not two facts, my seeing of the table and the table itself; 
but there is one fact only. The actual table enters into, is 
a part of, my experience. , If there were a table-in-itself that 
did not enter my experience it would be utterly different 
from what I actually experience as table; it would be un- 
known and meaningless; in short, there is no such thing. 
One of the noteworthy traits of the history of the human 
spirit is the fact that while “enterprises of great pith and 
moment” are sometimes “‘sicklied o’er with the pale cast of 
thought” so that “their currents turn awry,” it is also true, 
on Shakespearean authority, that “there is nothing either 
good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” It has often hap- 
pened that an abstract scientific or philosophical conception 
has exercised powerful unforeseen effects. Epistemological 
monism is an idea heavy with far-reaching consequences. 
On it, great minds have based their whole view of the uni- 
verse,—of the ‘flower in the crannied wall,” and God, and 
man. The theory is not, then, a mere curiosity of thought. 
A critical inspection of epistemological monism reveals 
the fact that it is capable of more than one interpretation. 
One may well ask, with Professor Lovejoy, “Tf ‘idea’ and ‘ob- 
ject’ are not two but one, which is the one?”’* It is quite 
possible to answer the question either in favor of the idea 
or in favor of the object; that is, the table may be idea 
only, or it may be object only. The view that holds that idea 
and object are one, and that they are idea is called episte- 


1A, O. Lovejoy, “Reflections of a Temporalist on the New Realism,” 
Jour. Phil., 8 (1911), 590. 


76 IDEAS AND REALITY 


mological idealism; the other view, that they are object, 
lacks a good name, partly because it is so young a member 
of the philosophical household that its parents have not 
gotten around to naming the child. Professor Perry has pro- 
posed panobjectivism. The word has the merit of suggesting 
its own meaning (all is object), however much etymologists 
may writhe; and we shall adopt it. We have, then, the 
idealist and the panobjectivist types of epistemological mon- 
ism before us for consideration. 

(1) EpistEMOLoGICAL IpEaLtIsm. If idea and object are 
one, it seems more obviously logical to say that they are 
idea. Our ideas are immediately with us, in our minds; 
nothing exceeds the certainty which arises from their imme- 
diately given character. It is clear what is meant when one 
says that objects are present to conscious experience, and” 
that there is nothing to the objects except their presence in 
some conscious experience. ‘Thus Berkeley reasoned, when 
he held that esse is percipi; the being of material objects lies 
in their being perceived by finite spirits because the Divine 
Spirit wills it. Thus also Hegel reasoned, when he held that 
in the Jdee, the Absolute Idea, subjective and objective are 
one. 

Epistemological idealism sounds at first suspiciously like 
solipsism; but neither Berkeley nor Hegel,’ nor any other 
representative of the view, ever had the notion that his ideas 
were all the ideas there were. Indeed, both of them, Berke-- 
ley more or less unconsciously, Hegel with explicit conscious- 
ness, used the coherence criterion of truth. The ideas that 
I experience, they reasoned, do not admit of coherent organ- 

1The grouping of Berkeley and Hegel in the text is not intended to 
imply that there is close resemblance between the systems of those two 
philosophers. Although both idealists, they are in many respects divergent. 


At the points mentioned in the text there is, however, more resemblance 
than has been generally recognized. 


MONISM 77 


ization without my supposing that there is a system of ideas 
in a supreme mind, in which, somehow, I participate. Criti- 
cism of this view will be postponed to a later point in the 
chapter. 

(2) EpIsTEMOLOGICAL PANOBJECTIVISM. ‘There are nu- 
merous thinkers in recent times who are willing to adopt 
epistemological monism, but are dissatisfied with the use 
that Berkeley and Hegel made of it. Panobjectivists say, 
Idea and object are truly one, but they are the object. 
What is consciousness but a gleam that shines for a while 
when certain objects in the environment and the nervous 
system are related in a certain way? Is it not arbitrary to 
regard all objects as modes of consciousness? Is it not 
scientific and reasonable to regard consciousness as a mode of 
objects? This point of view is maintained in contemporary 
philosophy by certain pragmatists and neo-realists. The 
pragmatists, such as Dewey, hold to monistic principles with 
less consistency; * the neo-realists, like Perry, maintain the 
doctrine with much more rigor. The process of pragmatic 
verification is seen, in the light of monism, to be most liter- 
ally a leading-up to the object itself, and the process of real- 
istic analysis * is, if epistemological monism be true, a veri- 
table analysis of the object. 

Thus we see that the same epistemological theory is used 
in one form by idealists to exalt the place of mind in the 
universe and to glorify God; while in another form it is 
used by panobjectivists to explain mind in terms of objects 
that have no mind, and hence either to destroy or utterly 
to transform the idea of God. The same fountain, contrary 
to Holy Writ, sends forth from the same opening sweet 
water and bitter! 


1See A. O. Lovejoy’s essay, “Pragmatism versus the Pragmatist,” in 
Essays in Critical Realism, pp. 35-81. 
2 See the discussion of method in Chapter I. 


78 IDEAS ANID RBAL DIY 


§ 5. EPISTEMOLOGICAL DUALISM 


A fourth possible answer to the problem is what is called 
epistemological dualism. This is the theory that holds that 
every case of knowledge includes two elements, idea and ob- 
ject, neither of which is identified with or can be reduced 
to the other. Whenever I have an idea, it is an idea about 
something. The “something” which my idea is “about” is 
called the object. The object may be physical, or mental, 
mathematical, or logical,—it may be anything of whatever 
kind. The idea may perhaps resemble the object, as my idea 
of what you are thinking may resemble’ your actual 
thoughts; or it may be different from the object, for my 
idea of a million miles is certainly not a million miles long. 
All that epistemological dualism asserts about the object 
is that it is not identical with the idea of it; and all that it 
asserts about the idea is that it refers to, or describes, or 
(simply) knows, the object. 

The dualistic account of knowledge is, for the ordinary 
mind, the simplest and most natural. If I say that two plus 
two are four, I certainly do not mean that my momentary 
idea of this truth is the mathematical truth itself. My ideas 
come and go; truth abides; hence my idea must be numeri- 
cally distinct from the object. Further, this view is the 
oldest and most persistent of epistemologies. It is usually 
said that the ancient Greeks never raised the epistemological 
question. If this be true, which is doubtful, it is because 
most Greek philosophers never thought of doubting the 
dualism of thought and its object.’ 

Modern philosophy was predominantly dualistic in its 


1 The assertion that true ideas always resemble their objects is called 
“the copy theory” of knowledge, but it is so manifestly inadequate as to 
require no further discussion. 

2 Parmenides, who identified thought and being, is an exception. 


DUALISM 79 


epistemological theory for a long period. Descartes, the 
rationalist, and Locke, the empiricist, were equally episte- 
mological dualists. It is true that these men and many of 
their successors drew from their epistemology illegitimate in- 
ferences about the nature of the object; but epistemological 
dualism should not be confused with any theory about the 
object. Such a theory belongs to ‘“‘ontology” (theory of 
being) rather than to epistemology. ‘The rise of episte- 
mological monism in Berkeley and in Hegel was due, in 
part, to their dissatisfaction with the dominant dualism. 
Kant’s thought is a curious instance of the power of dualistic 
thinking. What we have called Kantian subjectivism is 
probably to be interpreted as epistemologically monistic for 
phenomena, but dualistic for things-in-themselves. The 
black carbon compound called coal may be an object of 
immediate experience for Kant; but about coal-in-itself, 
Kant was as uncritically dualistic as the most naive coal- 
heaver. Of course there is the real thing, coal, which is 
other than my idea of it, Kant would say; so wholly other 
that it can never be known. While, then, Kant accepted 
epistemological dualism and used the unknown things-in- 
themselves to explain the rise of sensations in the mind, it is 
evident from his theory of phenomena and possible experi- 
ence that he did not look to his dualism for his explanation 
of knowledge. 

Despite Kant and Hegel, the problem will not down. In 
current philosophy, we find pragmatists, many new realists, 
and absolute idealists in an uncomfortable monistic alliance; 
while the presuppositions of the sciences, and the views of 
the critical realists, of some pragmatists and new realists 
(especially in England), and of most personalists are dual- 
istic. It is evident that we are facing a fundamental phil- 
osophical difficulty. 


80 IDEAS AND REALITY 


§ 6. DIFFICULTIES IN EPISTEMOLOGICAL 
DUALISM 


Since monism has arisen as a protest against dualism, the 
problem may be presented by discussing the monistic objec- 
tions to dualism. The monists have had a keen eye for dif- 
ficulties in the traditional view. 

Dualism, it is often urged, is not a solution of the problem 
of knowledge, but is only a statement of the problem. 
Here, on the one side is thought; there, on the other, is the 
object. Between them there is a great gulf fixed. A mere 
statement of this fact does not afford any understanding 
of knowledge, we are told, but is merely a first formulation 
of what appears to uncritical thought to be the situation. 

All, then, are agreed that the dualistic relation of idea and 
object is what appears to be an obvious description of at 
least some cases of knowledge. Whether it is, as dualism 
holds, a relation that cannot be further analyzed, or whether 
it is capable of reduction to an ultimate monism is a ques- 
tion that is to be settled on the basis of other considerations. 

Pressing the difficulties of the dualistic divorce of idea 
and object, the monist argues that dualism not merely fails 
to explain knowledge, but even makes it impossible. If the 
gulf between idea and object cannot be bridged, then the 
idea can never reach the object; and the result of dualism 
is skepticism. Did not Kant say that knowledge of those 
Dinge an sich off yonder outside of experience is impos- 
sible? 

The dualist is, however, bold enough to assert that this 
situation, in which monists scent skepticism, is just what 
knowledge is. To the charge of skepticism, he would reply 
that, unless knowledge of objects that can never be one with 
the idea that knows them is possible, then real knowledge 


DIFFICULTIES IN DUALISM 81 


and articulate experience itself are alike impossible. It is, 
for instance, obviously impossible for my idea ever to coin- 
cide monistically with a past event; yet, if science is possible, 
and if psychological apperception has any meaning, it must 
be granted that we can know what is past. We can then 
really have a true idea about what can never be identical 
with the idea; I can truly know that yesterday I went to the 
dentist, although my knowledge is to-day and the visit yes- 
terday is in the irrevocable past. The pragmatist would say 
that, while I cannot literally re-create past time, I can know 
about the past through present and future experiences that 
are monistically immediate. I know that I went to the den- 
tist, because there are two new crowns in my upper jaw, 
because I shall probably receive a bill, and because the 
dentist will ask me whether his work was satisfactory. But 
to the dualist, such assertions appear to be mere evasions 
of the fact that my crowns, the dentist’s bill, and his query 
will all refer to something past, which is the object meant; 
namely, my visit of yesterday. Knowledge does, as a mat- 
ter of fact, bridge the gulf between idea and object in 
thought without the possibility of the idea’s ever being 
one with the object. All articulate experience rests on such 
references and relations between present and past and future. 
Without a duality of thought and object, knowledge could 
not be. The charge that this involves skepticism rests on 
a misapprehension of the nature of knowledge. 

Coming to the attack from a somewhat different angle, 
the monist argues that dualism is objectionable because it 
is based on an appeal to the untrustworthy criterion of 
instinct. Many dualists have been unfortunate enough to 
make this appeal and thus to expose themselves to criti- 
cism. The belief that there are objects other than the 
ideas is, they have said, incapable of being proved; but it 


82 IDEAS AND REALITY 


is an instinctive belief of every sound human mind. Now 
the argument from instinct is, as we saw in Chapter II, no 
argument at all; nor is the case bettered if the instinctive 
belief is justified on pragmatic grounds. The pragmatic 
appeal is also logically defective. Hence, in so far as dual- 
ism is based on “instinct,” it is unproved. An instinctive 
belief, the dualist must admit, is not necessarily true; but 
he would ask, Is it necessarily false? The answer is that it 
is merely a candidate for critical examination. This argu- 
ment, then, proves nothing either way. The question still 
at issue is: Which hypothesis gives the more reasonable, 
more inclusive, more coherent, account of all the facts? 

The analytic panobjectivist bases his objection to dualism 
in part on the assertion that the method of science presup- 
poses epistemological monism; for science is concerned with 
analysis of the given. The data of science—rocks, metals, 
motions, distances, insects,—are objects of immediate sense 
experience. Granting this account of science (although it 
is actually too narrow), the dualist might admit that the 
starting-point of science appears to be monistic; but if he | 
followed the analyses of science to the end, he would find 
his dualism reinstated. Scientific analysis leads to mathe- 
matical points and instants, to and beyond the atom to 
electrons and perhaps beyond them. ‘These elements re- 
vealed by analysis are not given in the immediate experi- 
ence of the object; if they are real at all, they are objects 
other than our experience of them. Thus the result of 
science is dualistic. Furthermore, the asserted monism of its 
starting-point exists only in the mind of epistemological 
theorists; the sciences, as concretely existing, assume a dual- 
ism of idea and object,’ and the extremes of subjective ideal- 


1 As is done by Professor Drake, Essays in Critical Realism, p. 5. 
2See E. W. Hobson, The Domain of Natural Science, Chap. II, esp. 


Dp. 25. 


DIFFICULTIES IN DUALISM 83 


ism and of panobjectivism are equally foreign to the thought 
of science. The fact that science presupposes epistemological 
dualism does, however, not prove dualism to be true; for it 
is a function of philosophy to criticize the presuppositions of 
the sciences. Science cannot be exploited by or for any spe- 
cial epistemological theory. 

The monist has not yet exhausted his supply of logical 
ammunition. He may be willing to admit that there is the 
appearance of a dualism in many cases of knowledge; indeed, 
he must admit it: but he can still argue that these cases of 
apparent dualism are all in the end to be explained by refer- 
ence to some situation in which idea and object are one. 
That there are such situations, he contends, is indubitable. 
My knowledge of yesterday’s visit to the dentist, he would 
point out, was once an immediate experience; if it had not 
been, I could not truly know it. 

We must, then, confront the question: Are there indubi- 
table cases of immediate knowledge? We may be helped to 
answer this question if we examine the distinction between 
knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge about or knowl- 
edge by description. Acquaintance with an object is the 
kind of knowledge we have when the object is immediately 
present “to” or “before” the mind; knowledge about the 
object, or knowledge by description, is what arises from 
inference, reasoning and explanation. Acquaintance cannot 
be imparted to another mind; if I am acquainted with the 
color yellow, I may “describe” the circumstances under 
which any one may have an acquaintance with yellow, but I 


1 The distinction between “knowledge of acquaintance” and “knowl- 
edge about” w&s made by John Grote in the Exploratio Philosophica, 
Part I (1865), pp. 60 ff., Part II (1900), pp. 201 ff. It was taken up by 
James in his Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 221 f., by B. Russell, who introduced 
the term “knowledge by description” for “knowledge about” in The 
Problems of Philosophy, Chapter V; by W. R. Sorley, Moral Values 
and the Idea of God, 2nd ed., pp. 194 f., and by others. 


84 IDEAS AND REALITY 


cannot describe yellow. The only reason that any one under- 
stands the word yellow is that he has, or has had, an ac- 
quaintance with something yellow. Acquaintance, then, is 
direct or immediate or intuitive knowledge; description is in- 
direct or mediate or inferential. My own present conscious- 
ness I am acquainted with; an atom, or the past, or a mere 
instant of time, I can only know about or describe. 

Now, the epistemological monist makes his appeal to 
knowledge by acquaintance (or perception, as Professor 
Marvin * calls it). There must be something with which we 
are acquainted, he argues; all inference starts from imme- 
diate experience; all thinking is, in the last analysis, about 
something that we have directly perceived. What we thus 
directly perceive is the solid foundation of knowledge. 
Acquaintance is the basis of all description. What I know 
by acquaintance is so true that no other knowledge could 
add to its certainty, and no reasoning could shake it from 
its place in the realm of truth. Such knowledge is knowl- 
edge indeed; and such knowledge the epistemological monist 
believes to exist and to prove his position. For when knowl- 
edge is direct perception without the mediation of reasoning 
or inference, there is (he holds) no duality of idea and object, 
no gulf for knowledge to cross. The object is present; and 
knowledge by acquaintance merely apprehends this fact. 
If the monist is right in this account of immediate knowl- 
edge, and if (as most would agree) knowledge by descrip- 
tion is merely an interpretation of knowledge by acquaint- 
ance, it would appear that the case for epistemological 
monism is stronger than the arguments hitherto considered 
might lead one to suppose. 


1See W. T. Marvin, “The Emancipation of Metaphysics from Episte- 
mology” in E. B. Holt, and others, The New Realism (N. Y., Macmillan, 
1912), PP. 45-95, esp. p. 65. 


DILLER EICULLIESIN  DOALIS™M 85 


At least two questions must be answered if we are justly 
to appraise the monistic interpretation of knowledge by 
acquaintance; these are, first, Just how much knowledge 
by acquaintance is there? and secondly, Does knowledge by 
acquaintance presuppose that idea and object are one? 

To the first question widely divergent answers have been 
given. The Scotch School of Common Sense (late eighteenth 
and early nineteenth centuries) would regard most of our 
ordinary beliefs about the nature of persons and things as 
immediate certainties; whereas John Grote would say that 
there is really no knowledge that is wholly immediate and 
free from inference and reasoning. Even Bertrand Russell, 
who makes much of knowledge by acquaintance, admits that 
“it would be rash to assume that human beings ever, in fact, 
have acquaintance with things without at the same time 
knowing some truth about them.” The doctors disagree,— 
no unusual event among doctors of philosophy; yet, as is 
often the case in differences of opinion, there is at least one 
point on which all would agree, namely, that our own present 
consciousness is as nearly immediate as anything could be. 
In this consciousness, sense data are very prominent. Sense 
data, then, are as immediate as anything is. But if I in- 
quire about the immediacy of my perception of the redness 
of this red book on my desk, the temporal character of the 
perception alone is enough to make me pause. That is, 
any sense perception is a process in time; and if the mind 
binds together the successive instants in the perception and 
connects them all with one object, even the simple sense 
datum to a certain extent is infected with description and 
mediation.* 


1 This argument is not refuted by James’s position that relations as well 
as terms are immediately experienced; for in the temporal relation there 
is a reference to the past that now is not; and reference to what is not 
present destroys immediacy, 


86 IDEAS AND) REALITY 


If we are looking for what is merely immediate and void 
of all descriptive elements, we seem to have before us the 
prospect of a long search in waterless places. Mere acquaint- 
ance is indeed, as James put it, a “dumb way” of knowledge. 
Is there any experience or any truth that means anything if 
taken as merely immediate? Sense experience fails because 
it is temporal; no sooner does it appear than it vanishes into 
an irrevocable past, and it is, so to speak, not there long 
enough to be immediate; or at best, it is a series of ‘“‘imme- 
diates” that come and go like mystic shadow shapes. 

Yet this account, although analytically sound, strikes us 
as unreal. We do bind the present with the past; we keep 
on seeing the red book on the desk as one object, not as a 
phantasmagoria. If nothing is immediate, why does so much 
seem to be immediate? Perhaps the success of our analysis 
of the sense datum was due to our failure to take the whole 
immediate fact into account; what we are really acquainted 
with, what is really present to us, is not a sense datum 
merely, but is our total actual experience at any time. Per- 
haps, further, this total actual experience is a self-conscious 
life, a person, the very nature of which is, in part, to bind 
together past, present, and future, and thus to avoid the 
defect of the merely temporal sensation. In Chapter VI the 
problem of the self or person will be discussed. At present, 
we call attention to the fact that what we are acquainted 
with is our total personal experience; the living tissue of 
our being as a conscious self. It is by the interpretation of 
what we find in our conscious experience that we build up all 
knowledge. Every other pretended truth is an abstraction 
from our concrete self-life, and may or may not be true. 
The truth that I experience what I do is immediate, direct, 
and undeniable. In immediate personal consciousness, if 
anywhere, there is a true case of knowledge by acquaintance. 


DIFFICULTIES IN DUALISM 87 


We must now return to the second question: Does knowl- 
edge by acquaintance presuppose that idea and object are 
one? In most of the supposed cases of knowledge by 
acquaintance, intuitive or immediate knowledge, such knowl- 
edge certainly does not presuppose that idea and object are 
one; if I see you, it does not follow that I am you, or that 
my seeing is you or any part of you. It means only that 
my present personal experience of seeing is one that is 
directly given and is not arrived at by reasoning. Yet there 
always remains a distinction between my perception as idea 
and its object as reality. There may be as many “intui- 
tive” truths as you please; the validity of these truths is 
always other than the psychological fact of my perception. 

But how shall we answer the question in the case of per- 
sonal self-consciousness? Are not idea and object one in this 
instance? Is not my acquaintance with myself co-extensive 
with my personal conscious* life? It is, indeed, quite pos- 
sible that our investigation of the nature of personality may 
lead us to conclude that a person is no more and no less 
than his conscious experience. In self-experience, then, there 
would not be two realities, a self that experiences and a 
self that is experienced. The experience is just one con- 
scious life, one person. 

Yet mere self-experience without self-interpretation is just 
as “dumb” as any other mere acquaintance would be. It 
is quite possible to say, with the poet, “I know everything 
except myself.” Although self-experience is omnipresent 
and inevitable, self-knowledge is a rare and difficult achieve- 
ment. 

The conclusion, then, is this: that self-experience, of which 
epistemological monism would seem to be true, is not, prop- 


1¥For the sake of clearness, we omit all reference to the subconscious 
at this point. 


88 IDEAS AND REALITY 


erly speaking, a case of knowledge; whereas in self-knowl- 
edge the aspect of myself that knows is distinct from the 
aspect of myself that is being known. All genuine self- 
knowledge, therefore, is dualistic. If, for instance, I know 
that I like onions, my knowledge is one fact, and my liking 
for the onions is another. When I know, I stand off and 
look at myself. 

Epistemological monism cannot, then, build on the fact 
of “knowledge by acquaintance”; for that with which we 
are most certainly acquainted, our own self-experience, is 
not, so long as it remains mere experience, genuine knowl- 
edge; and as soon as our awareness becomes genuine knowl- 
edge, the situation ceases to be a monistic relation of idea 
and object and becomes dualistic. 

There remains still a refuge for the epistemological monist. 
If he is willing to grant the force of the arguments thus far 
advanced, he will agree with us that the final appeal is to 
self-experience. But he would not be satisfied with the 
distinction between the monism of self-experience and the 
dualism of self-knowledge. He might argue that the pres- 
ence of the two points of view is a defect, and that ultimately 
the dualism is to be reduced to a monism. The reduction is 
accomplished by the theory of the Absolute Self.t This 
theory advances the hypothesis (which it asserts that it can 
prove) that all reality is the experience of one Self, the 
Absolute, of whom all finite selves are members; it is the 
vine, we are the branches. Until the existence and the unity 
of this Self is understood, there will seem to be a duality 
between idea and object, between one self and another, be- 
tween my knowledge of myself and myself as known. But 
if everything is included in the consciousness of one Absolute 


1For a presentation of this standpoint, see, e.g., Royce’s Spirit of 
Modern Philosophy or Miss Calkins’s Persistent Problems of Philosophy. 


ARGUMENTS FOR DUALISM 89 


Self, which knows everything in one completely coherent, 
all-inclusive act of conscious self-experience, there is no ulti- 
mate distinction between idea and object; the knowledge 
possessed by the Absolute and the being of the universe 
are one and the same fact. 

About such a view as this, which has cast a potent spell 
over many minds, it can only be said at this point that it 
is a highly speculative theory of metaphysics. It gives an 
account of divine epistemology; but leaves us human beings 
still on a dualistic basis. Perhaps monism is true in heaven; 
dualism is certainly the fact on earth. The mystic who 
“becomes God,” who feels his absolute identity with the 
divine may however assert a celestial monism in a terrestrial 
environment. Hence, we cannot regard this point of view 
as refuted until we have considered the nature of personality, 
the facts of religion, and our general metaphysical outlook. 
Meanwhile, we are justified even by the absolutist in regard- 
ing terrestrial knowledge as dualistic in structure. 


§ 7. ARGUMENTS FOR EPISTEMOLOGICAL 
DUALISM 


After this survey of the monistic objections to epistemolog- 
ical dualism, it remains to consider the positive arguments for 
dualism. ‘The question at issue between monism and dual- 
ism, as between any two mutually exclusive points of view, 
is, Which is the more reasonable, the more inclusive, in 
short, the more coherent of the two? In view of the fact 
that absolute idealism, the historical source of the coherence 
theory, has inclined toward monism, in the form of the 
theory of the Absolute Self, it is evident that many would 
challenge any claim of dualism to a higher degree of coher- 
ence; yet it is on its ability to establish this claim that the 


90 IDEAS AND, REAL IEY 


dualistic case depends. Too many other questions (psycho- 
logical, logical, and ontological) are involved for the present 
discussion to pretend to completeness. We shall, then, pro- 
ceed to state briefly some of the grounds for dualism as a 
theory of human knowledge,—leaving the Absolute Self out 
of consideration for the present. 

If transtemporal reference* be a fact, dualism is true. 
Transtemporal reference is the reference of an idea, J, oc- 
curring at some time, 7, to an event occurring at some other 
time, Tn. Just as surely as T and T=” are not the same 
fact, so surely is J not identical with any object located at 
Dey 

Similarly, trans-spatial reference probably implies dual- 
ism, but with somewhat less cogency. Ideas have a loca- 
tion in time, but not in space. Yet it may be said, with 
considerable plausibility, that if an idea, 7, occurring in con- 
nection with a human organism located at S, can refer to a 
point in space, S -+ , which is not accessible to the senses of 
the organism, it becomes highly improbable that J and S$ +n 
are identical facts. My idea of the center of the earth or of 
the seeds of an apple that I have never seen cannot be iden- 
tical with the objects. 

If there is truth in the belief that other selves exist and 
that no part of one self can ever be identical with any part 
of another, dualism is valid; for when I know another self, 
my idea is no part of him, and he is no part of my idea. 
The force of this argument, however, depends on one’s 
theory of consciousness, which will be discussed in a later 
chapter. 

The apparent coherence of monism is attained by deny- 
ing or minimizing certain facts; panobjectivism, taken liter- 


1 Especially emphasized by A. O. Lovejoy; sometimes called “inter- 
temporal cognition.” 


ARGUMENTS FOR DUALISM 91 


ally, denies truth to the subject;* and epistemological ideal- 
ism in the end denies the object (Hegel to the contrary not- 
withstanding). Dualism regards it as the function of philos- 
ophy to take the facts of our conscious life as given and to 
seek a coherent expression for them. 

Dualism gives a clear and adequate account of the fact 
of error. Our ideas refer to objects, but they often fail 
to reach the truth about them because they are based on 
insufficient observation, incoherent thinking, or distorted 
data arising from defects of our sense organs. Monism, on 
the contrary, whether in the panobjectivistic ? or idealistic , 
form, has difficulty in telling how error could arise. If idea 
and object are one, how can idea be inadequate to object? 

The difficulty in accounting for error has led some monists 
to postulate a realm in which dwell actual contradictions, 
round squares, long shorts and yellow sounds; and to sup- 
pose that when we err, we know these entities. But even 
if this peculiar hypothesis be granted, there is no real place 
for error; for error, on this theory, becomes nothing but 
true acquaintance with the realm of contradiction. Nor is 
the view of absolute idealism a better way out. If we admit 
the Absolute Self and assert that our error is due to the fact 
that we are only a part of the Absolute and hence know 
only partial truth, we are still in difficulty. Like the pan- 
objectivist, the absolutist explains error by saying that there 
really isn’t any error. The absolutist has on his hands a 
further problem of his own, namely, the contradiction be- 
tween the point of view of the finite and the point of view 
of the Absolute. It is a solid fact that I am ignorant and 


1 Professor Montague has, however, assured the writer in conversation 
that neo-realism never intended to deny the subject. 

2 Perhaps the best study of this problem is Dr. Benjamin D. Scott’s 
unpublished dissertation on The Problem of Error in American Neo- 
Realism. 


92 IDEAS AND REALITY 


err grievousiy; and it seems impossible that my error, in all 
its ignorance and erroneousness, should be part of an Abso- 
lute Mind that transcends all error in perfect knowledge of 
truth. If the Absolute can contain my knowledge as I 
possess it, with all its infection of error, and also that same 
knowledge, perfectly explained and understood in the light 
of all truth, the Absolute must have a singular capacity for 
playing intellectual hide-and-seek with itself. 

Finally, dualism has the advantage of leaving the meta- 
physical question—the question about what kind of universe 
this is—open for further investigation. A thorough-going 
epistemological monist of the idealistic type is, if consistent, 
either a solipsist or an absolute idealist; if of the panobjec- 
tivist type, he has a universe from which mind or personality 
is ruled out except as a product of the relations of objects. 
The dualist, however, recognizes that the problems about 
the nature of object and of subject are to be settled on other 
grounds than reference to the knowledge relation. Dualism, 
at any rate, leaves room for minds and their objects, what- 
ever minds and their objects may turn out to be. 


§8. THE OBJECTIVE REFERENCE OF THOUGHT 


Out of the rather abstract discussion of the problem 
of knowledge up to this point one result emerges very def- 
initely: our ideas refer to reality, and in so doing (if dualism 
be true) they refer to something beyond themselves. This 
is called the objective reference of thought. Current thought 
is confused at this point by the fact that many, especially 
pragmatists, take objective reference to mean reference to 
an object that will be immediately present in future experi- 
ence. If, however, this were the only type of objective refer- 
ence, knowledge would, as we have seen, be essentially impos- 


THE CATEGORIES 93 


sible. The object to which I refer, if it be my future happi- 
ness, may some time become present experience; if it be my 
death, it will certainly be present experience one day; but if 
it be last evening, or Boyle’s law, or infinity, it will never be 
any one’s present experience. Such objects cannot be present 
or “presented”; they can only be referred to, meant, known. 
Here is illustrated the value of the criterion of coherence; for 
only that criterion is at once comprehensive and rigorous 
enough to organize and judge a body of truth referring to 
such diverse objects as we human beings know. 

The fact of objective reference is a fundamental trait of | 
mind. A more careful inspection of this fact reveals certain 
laws of objective reference that are of great importance. In 
our objects there is much that from the point of view of 
our minds is foreign, arbitrary, unpredictable, and (as some 
have said) “irrational.” If I had never seen anything red, 
I could never predict or reason out what redness would be. 
Despite the seeming irrationality of experience, the sciences 
have discovered uniformities that they call laws. Scientific 
laws, however, apply only to certain classes of objects or to 
objects only under certain conditions. Philosophy inquires 
whether there are laws universally true of all our objects or 
more necessarily true than the laws of science. Hence the 
problem arises, What are the fundamental laws of objective 
reference? These fundamental laws or principles are known 
to philosophy as categories. 


§9. THE CATEGORIES 


The theory of categories goes back, like so much else, 
to Aristotle. He believed that the most universal affirma- 
tions that we make about objects may be discovered by a 
study of the grammatical structure of language; for lan- 


94 IDEAS AND REALITY 


guage expresses all that we say about things. At different 
stages of his thought, Aristotle gave different lists of cate- 
gories. The following were mentioned by him at one time or 
another: substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, 
action, passion or passivity, position, condition. Later phi- 
losophers, the Stoics, Plotinus, the scholastics, and modern 
thinkers, have suggested varying lists. The most famous 
table is the one used by Immanuel Kant, subdivided into four 
sections as follows: Quantity (unity, plurality, totality), 
Quality (reality, negation, limitation), Relation (inherence 
and subsistence, causality and dependence, community or 
reciprocity), Modality (possibility and impossibility, exist- 
ence and non-existence, necessity and contingency). This 
list is artificially constructed; its value lies chiefly in its 
giving Kant a starting-point for his discussion of the prob- 
lems. Hegel made a famous attempt to base metaphysics 
on a dialectic which showed the necessary logical relations 
of the categories. His table is divided as follows: Being 
(quality, quantity, measure), Essence (ground, appearance, 
actuality), Concept (subjective concept, object, Idea). 

There is wide difference of opinion among recent philos- 
ophers about categories; there is disagreement about their 
number, their logical order, their relative importance, and 
even about the meaning of the whole problem of the cate- 
gories. A survey of these differences would carry us too 
far afield.t_ For purposes of comparison with the older lists, 
one more recent table is given herewith:* time, number, 
space, motion, quantity, being, quality, identity, causality, 
necessity (“‘a much more doubtful category than the preced- 
ing ones’), possibility (also ‘“‘doubtful’), and purpose 
(which Bowne regards as highest). 


1See E. G. Spaulding, The New Rationalism, Ch. 29, esp. p. 222. 
2From B. P. Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, pp. 66-116. 


THE CATEGORIES 95 


It is easy to see that if we could tell precisely what the 
categories are and could define them, we should have found 
the clew to the riddle of the universe. The attempt to do 
this we must dispense with; for the systematic interpretation 
of the categories belongs to metaphysics, and in this chapter 
we are interested in the categories only as they relate to the 
epistemological problem. Our discussion will take the form 
of questions, with a brief statement of possible answers. 

(1) WHat ARE CaTEcorIES? We have called them the 
fundamental laws of objective reference. This is an insuf- 
ficient definition. What is a fundamental law? A funda- 
mental law is one that is logically essential to the very being 
of the system of objects to which it refers. The laws of the 
natural sciences are not “fundamental,” but empirical. The 
speed of light is about 186,300 miles a second; but there 
seems to be no logical reason why it should not be a few 
hundred or thousand miles more or less than 186,300. If 
it were ever so little more or less, great changes in the 
physical world would doubtless ensue; but there is no reason 
to suppose that matter and energy would therefore cease to 
be. A category must be fundamental in a sense in which the 
speed of light is not. Space, for instance, is a category; for 
if there were no space, the entire realm of space-objects 
would be blotted out; light, at any speed, all matter and all 
motion, would be impossible. Time is a category; for the 
world of change and motion would be impossible if there 
were no time. Being is a category; for if there were no 
being, there would be nothing whatever to know. A category 
tells us something universal and necessary (or @ priori, as 
Kant put it) about the world that we experience. 

(2) How May THE CaTEcorIES BE CLASSIFIED? It is 
not necessary to debate the many different theories about 
the logical order of the categories. The very definition of 


96 IDEAS AND REALITY 


category, however, suggests one type of classification. A 
category, we have said, is a law essential to the being of the 
system to which it refers. Categories, then, may be classi- 
fied into two groups: first, those that are true of the uni- 
verse as a whole; secondly, those that are valid of some lesser 
system of objects. The first group is called metaphysical. 
The goal of philosophy may be described as the discovery 
of the truly metaphysical categories. ‘The second group 
contains an indefinite variety of systems; but since the world 
of space and time bulks so large in human experience and 
in science, it may be regarded as the chief subject matter 
of the second group. Categories of the objects of the 
physical, spatio-temporal system are often called categories 
of phenomena. The term phenomena, meaning things as 
they appear, goes back to Plato, and was used in a special 
sense by Kant. Science employs the term to mean merely 
facts or events. Use of the expression ‘‘categories of phe- 
nomena” is not intended to commit us to the theories of Plato, 
or of Kant, or of any one else; but only to point out the 
categories that refer to the physical order. Whether some, 
or even all, of the phenomenal categories (space, time, 
motion, cause, number, quality) are also metaphysical is a 
problem. We know that they are true of a part of the 
universe; are they also true of the whole? Our answer to 
this question will show whether we are to be materialists, 
agnostics, idealists, realists, theists, atheists, or what not 
in philosophical outlook. 

(3) How 1s ANy GIVEN PRINCIPLE PROVED TO BE A 
CatEcory? This question should be put explicitly, because 
in too many discussions it appears as though the categories 
fell from heaven at the philosopher’s feet, or were imme- 
diately evident to any one who inspects his own mind, or— 
worst of all—were true because some important and re- 


THE CATEGORIES OF 


spected book says so. There is a more excellent way of 
telling a category when we see one. How were we able 
to decide that the speed of light is not a category, but that 
space is? In a word, thus: if we deny the speed of light, we 
contradict a great many facts of experience, but we do not 
deny that we have experience; if we deny space, however, 
we do not deny certain particular facts merely; we deny the 
possibility of all experience of physical objects. A category, 
then, may be identified by the fact that, if it be not true, 
a whole system of experience is impossible. Denial of a 
valid empirical law contradicts particular facts or the inter- 
pretation of them; denial of a category contradicts the pos- 
sibility of there being any facts of the sort in question. 
If there are no space and time, there is no physical world. 
Categories are the structural principles of a coherent system. 

(4) ARE CATEGORIES PRINCIPLES OF THOUGHT OR PRIN- 
CIPLES OF BEING oR BotH? That, it might well be said, 
is the question! About this point center some of the sharp- 
est divergencies of philosophical opinion. What we have 
called “Kantian” subjectivism regards the categories as 
principles of thought, but not of being; modern panobjec- 
tivism regards them as the most universal characters of 
being and only derivatively characters of thought; most 
metaphysicians hold that some, at least, of the categories 
are both principles of thought and principles of being. All 
would agree, the panobjectivist most grudgingly, that the 
categories are in some sense principles of thought. What I 
assert universally about the world must be something that 
my thought is able to assert; if I talk about space, or time, 
or cause, my mind must be able to think in terms of space, 
time, and cause. 

This thinking is an interpretation, which carries thought 
far beyond the particular present experience. Hence the 


98 IDEAS AND REALITY 


mind is often said (since Kant) to be active in knowledge. 
Objective reference is an act of the mind. The specializing 
of this reference according to the categories is mental activ- 
ity. In view of this activity, it is misleading to speak, as 
some do, of categories as “mental pigeon-holes” or ‘‘molds 
into which experience is poured.” 


§ 10. TRANSITION TO THE FOLLOWING 
CHAPTER 


Important as is the recognition of the activity of the mind 
in knowledge, the metaphysical problem, to which we shall 
address ourselves in the following chapters, is more impor- 
tant. In terms of the results of the present chapter, the 
metaphysical problem may be described as an attempt to 
answer the questions: What is the reality to which my ideas 
refer? What is the nature of the realm of objects-other-than- 
my-idea? What categories of my thought afford the most 
coherent interpretation of the world of experience? 


CHAPTER IV 


WHAT ARE PHYSICAL THINGS? 


§ I. THE PLACE OF THIS CHAPTER IN THE 
BOOK AS A WHOLE 


Philosophy seeks to describe reality. The first three 
chapters of this book have dealt with necessary preliminaries, 
but have not contributed directly to an account of reality. 
After the introductory description of the philosophical spirit, 
some of the fundamental problems of logic and epistemology 
were taken up. Logic and epistemology together do not, 
however, tell us anything specific about the structure of 
reality. They presuppose, it is true, that reality is orderly, 
rational, knowable.*. Beyond this they do not venture. 

The direct and explicit attempt to solve the problem of 
reality is called metaphysics. The word is from the Greek 
and was first used by Andronicus of Rhodes, who called 
Aristotle’s treatise on the subject, “The Things that come 
after Physics” (ra pera ta pvoina), hence, Metaphysics. 
Metaphysics is a word of strange and forbidding sound; it 
smacks of the mysterious and transcendental (whatever the 
transcendental may be). When a modern writer wishes to 
condemn an idea as abstruse or impractical, he casts about 
for a term of reproach, and nothing suits him better for the 
purpose than metaphysical. It is unfortunate that the word 

1 Note Hegel’s famous saying, “Was verniinftig ist, das ist wirklich, 


und was wirklich ist, das ist verniinftig.” (What is rational is actual, and 
what is actual is rational.) 


99 


100 PHYSICAL THINGS 


has thus fallen on evil days, for metaphysics is no more than 
the attempt to define what is truly real. A metaphysical 
account of anything is simply an “‘unusually persistent” at- 
tempt to think truly about it; the formidable adjective, 
metaphysical, often means no more than veal in an emphatic 
sense. ‘‘Metaphysical reality,’’ of which philosophy talks so 
much, is real reality; that is, reality as it is understood when 
we are thinking coherently about it, as contrasted with 
reality as it appears in unthinking experience or even In 
experience incompletely interpreted. The rest of this book 
will deal with metaphysical problems, as thus defined. 

Metaphysics was divided by Christian Wolff into four 
subdivisions,—ontology, cosmology, psychology, and the- 
ology. Ontology, or theory of being, undertakes to answer 
the question, What does it mean to be? Cosmology, or 
theory of the order of the universe, puts the question, How 
shall we think of the system of reality as a whole? Psychol- 
ogy, or theory of the soul, asks, What is the nature of the 
soul, spirit, or mind? Rational theology (as distinguished 
from revealed theology) is the theory of God in so far as 
he is accessible to reason. This classification, long followed 
by philosophers, is no longer adhered to. It separates prob- 
lems that belong together and artificially limits the scope of 
inquiry. Modern metaphysical thought has been enlarged 
by the addition of what is called axiology, or theory of values. 
Wolff’s terms are, however, still widely used. 


§2. PHYSICAL THINGS AS STARTING POINT 
OF METAPHYSICS 


One might suppose that it makes little difference where 
we begin metaphysical inquiry, if only we will think. Meta- 
physics might begin with the human soul, or with the dust 


THINGS AND METAPHYSICS 101 


under our feet, or with numbers, or with the sun in heaven. 
But after all some starting points are much more complex 
‘and confusing than others. It is best to commence the in- 
quiry at a point that is generally intelligible and generally 
agreed on. The world of physical objects appears to meet 
these qualifications. Every one experiences such objects and 
knows, for practical purposes, what is meant by them. 

By physical things are meant those objects that can be 
located in the system of space and time by means of which 
we communicate with each other. An ideal is not a physical 
thing, for it cannot be located anywhere in particular; and 
a dream-object or imaginary object is not physical, for, 
although located spatially and temporally, it is not in the 
public space by which we communicate with others. An 
onion of my fancy cannot be shown to my neighbor and 
brings no tears to his eyes. The chairman of our intel- 
lectual life excludes the onion of imagination or dream 
from membership in the committee on physical things. 

Of our experiences, then, we say that some refer to real 
physical things and some do not. Things are not all that 
we are conscious of. There are also the conscious states 
themselves (which are located nowhere in space), univer- 
sals (neither in space nor in time), and values (the status 
of which is problematic). It is, however, more natural to 
begin with the physical order than with the other forms of 
being; for the tendency of thought is toward the object, 
and particularly toward the physical object. The history 
of philosophy and of science began with the material world. 
The very existence of minds appears to depend on physical 
facts in the nervous system. 

The question, What are things, and what is their place 
in reality? is sufficiently fundamental to warrant our begin- 
ning with it. 


102 PHYSICAL THINGS 


Si. METHOD OF INVESTIGATION 


We shall start by seeking to define the view of things 
that is held by the ordinary intelligent person whose mind 
has not been enlightened (or corrupted!) by philosophy. 
This unsophisticated attitude is usually called naive real- 
ism. We shall then proceed from naive realism to the 
account of things given by science; and thence to the philo- 
sophical analysis of things. 

Lest some reader become unduly suspicious at this point, 
it is well to state explicitly that philosophy has no fell 
designs. No philosophy has ever denied that there are 
physical things. Philosophy does not (as some seem to 
fear) aim to deny the reality of physical things; it aims 
only, with persistent inquisitiveness, to inquire what these 
things are. The question of philosophy is, How can I think 
about things in a way that is at once intelligible and self- 
consistent? 


§ 4. PHYSICAL THINGS AS THEY ARE FOR 
NAIVE REALISM 


The man who has not indulged in the questioning habit 
of the philosopher is pretty firm in the faith that things are 
just as they appear to be. He eats, chops, wears, welds 
things to his satisfaction; how foolish, he would say, to ask 
whether things are other than they seem! He looks through 
the eyes of Peter Bell. 


“A primrose by a river’s brim 
A yellow primrose was to him, 
And it was nothing more.” 


NAIVE REALISM 103 


Why should a yellow primrose be anything more or less 
than a yellow primrose? What more can be said? There 
your naive realist stands pat. If the philosopher is restless 
and wishes thought to move on, the common man, agreeing 
for once with Berkeley, accuses the philosopher of raising a 
dust and then complaining that he cannot see. 

The naive realist evidently takes the report of his senses 
about primroses and other things as the truth. In Chapter 
II it was shown how ill it fares with a view that makes sen- 
sation the criterion of truth, and the most naive of realists 
must begin to make reservations in the light of experience. 
The same thing appears to the senses to be different under 
different conditions. A stick appears straight in the air 
and bent in the water; the water feels cold to a warm hand 
and warm toacold one. Toa certain type of color-blind eye, 
the yellow primrose appears gray. At a distance all objects 
appear small; near by they seem larger. The same thing 
cannot be both straight and crooked, both cold and warm, 
both yellow and gray, both small and large, unless the uni- 
verse is a madhouse. 

Confronted with these facts, the naive realist tones down 
his assertion and admits that things are not always as they 
appear, but are as they appear under certain conditions. 
Then arises the question, Where or what are these favored 
conditions, when is the auspicious moment to see the thing 
as it really is? After reflection the realist will probably reply 
that things really are as they appear to normal senses under 
normal conditions. This is probably the best answer he can 
make without surrendering his position entirely; but it is 
not entirely convincing. 

How, the realist may be asked, shall we decide what 
senses are normal? Shall we appeal to majority vote and 


104 PHYSIGALD TE ING s 


say that the primrose is yellow because most of us see it 
so? The appeal to the majority is democratic; but democ- 
racy is dubious as a guide to truth. The great discoveries 
and inventions have usually been made by men in a 
minority of one. The frontiers of thought and truth are 
penetrated by only a few daring spirits. It is socially useful 
to agree with majority opinion; but real intellectual prog- 
ress comes from those who, like Charles Peirce, “belong 
to that class of scalawags who prefer, with God’s help, to 
look the truth in the face, whether doing so be to the inter- 
ests of society or not.” * We are not likely to find what 
senses are “normal” and truth-revealing either by majority 
vote or by striking an average. Indeed, no trustworthy 
decision is possible without recourse to science. 

There are other difficulties in naive realism. On what 
ground, we might inquire, do you say that the primrose you 
see and the primrose you touch with your fingers are one 
and the same flower? You surely cannot see your sensa- 
tion of touch nor can you touch visual sensation; how then 
can you say, on your principles, that the primrose is one 
flower? Does it not appear as several different kinds of 
sensation which the mind connects together and calls a 
flower? Or, to raise a different question, if things are just 
as they appear how can you account for the fact that things 
change? If the primrose really is yellow and nothing more, 
how does it come to be black after it is burned? An object 
capable of such change must be more than it appeared to be! 

The objections to naive realism are so fundamental that 
the position must be abandoned, as it is by every one who 
accepts physics and chemistry. Naive realism gives way 
to science. : 


1 Cited in Rogers, English and American Philosophy since 1800. 


SCIENCE 105 


§ 5. PHYSICAL THINGS AS THEY ARE FOR 
SCIENCE 


As soon as men began to think about things they discovered 
that the reports of sensation were self-contradictory and 
fruitless. One of man’s first insights is that appearances are 
deceitful. Science, like common sense, starts with appear- 
ances. ‘The various salts, bases, acids, and the like with 
which the chemist deals appear to him as they appear to the 
most unscientific observer. No text-book on chemistry, 
however, confines itself to descriptions of the appearances of 
elements and compounds; it proceeds to an account of 
chemical laws. 

The sciences have found that the only way to manage 
physical things is to experiment with them, analyze them, 
and formulate hypotheses about the laws of their structure 
and behavior. An hypothesis is said to be verified when the 
facts occur as the hypothesis predicts. Verification becomes 
more cogent when the hypothesis has mathematical form. 

When science has done its work, we can no longer say 
that things really are as they appear to be. Apples are still 
seen as red and primroses as yellow, but physics is not 
interested in the psychological experience called redness or 
in the experience of yellowness. For physics, the redness 
is not what we see; but it is a certain kind of light wave 
reflected from the surface of the apple. Red and yellow 
differ only in wave-length. According to what has been 
the accepted theory, the universe is filled with a tenuous 
medium called ether." Light is a form of radiant energy 
traveling in wave form through the ether at a rate of about 
186,300 miles a second. The wave length is the distance 

1 Recent experiments, culminating in Einstein’s theories, have cast doubt 


on the hypothesis of the ether; but Einstein makes things worse rather 
than better for the naive realist. 


106 PHYSICAL THINGS 


from crest to crest of two adjacent waves. When we see 
the redness of the much-discussed red apple, the physical 
fact is reflected light of wave-lengths in the region of 
671 yuu; when we see the yellow of the yellow primrose, 
the fact is the reflection of wave-lengths in the region of 
580 yu. The range of visible color in the spectrum is from 
deep red (about 770 yy) to deep violet (about 390 pup). 
Waves somewhat longer than 770 yy are called infra-red 
and constitute the so-called heat spectrum; those somewhat 
shorter than 390 yp are called ultra-violet, and give 
photographic and other effects; but neither are visible to 
the human eye. These facts, the physics of which is beyond 
question, however meanly we may think of the ether, anni- 
hilate naive realism. Speculative minds have sometimes in- 
quired what would be the result in human perception if 
some operation could connect the optic nerve with the audi- 
tory nerve, so that the impressions now received on the retina 
and transmitted to the visual area of the brain were switched 
to the auditory area. It has been suggested that what we 
now see as a color might then be heard as a sound. Such 
speculations, however, are not needed to support the con- 
clusion of physics that our psychological experience of color 
is an effect of a physical fact that has no color in the psy- 
chological sense. 

Sound causes similar catastrophe to naive realism. Science 
shows that the physical basis of sound is a form of energy 
transmitted in longitudinal vibrations by any elastic mate- 
rial medium, usually by air; and that under standard con- 
ditions it travels about 1,087 ft. a second in air. Differ- 
ences in the pitch of heard sounds are due to differences in 

1 wu is the standard designation for a millimicron, 7. e., one millionth 


part of a millimeter. For condensed data see the articles in any good 
dictionary or encyclopedia on spectrum, color, and light. 


SCIENCE 107 


the number of vibrations that occur each second. The tone 
of lowest audible pitch is about 16 vibrations a second; that 
of highest audible pitch is about 41,000 a second. In 
nature, then, there is nothing like our perception of sound. 

Thus science solves the old puzzles about whether there 
are sound and color where there is no ear or eye to perceive 
them. The answer is that, if you mean by sound and color 
our conscious perceptions or anything like them, there is no 
sound when the oak crashes to the ground in a forest where 
there is no ear; there is no color in the most gorgeous tropical 
flowers, if no eye ever gazes upon them. But, the physicist 
will add, by sound and color I mean certain forms of energy 
which may be measured as our percepts cannot be, and 
which are there whether or not there be an eye or an ear 
in the universe. 

What then are physical things? The naive realist said, 
Things are just as they appear to our senses. The physicist 
says, Things are indeed such as to produce certain sensa- 
tions in us, but the thing is wholly unlike the sensation that 
it produces. Physical sound and color are as different from 
psychological sound and color as the pleasure that arises 
from eating a good beefsteak is from the appearance of the 
steak to the eye. 

Now let us look at the physical world from another point 
of view. It is a familiar fact that physics and chemistry 
have analyzed what we call matter into molecules, and mole- 
cules into atoms. The word atom in Greek means “what 
cannot be cut.” Modern science has taken this word as a 
challenge, and has proceeded to cut the uncuttable.* Since 


1See Sir Ernest Rutherford’s article, “The Constitution of Matter,” in 
Vol. 31 of the Enc. Brit., New Volumes; also the article, “Radioactivity” 
in Vol. 32. Other instructive treatments are Mills, The Realities of 
Modern Science; Comstock and Troland, Matter and Electricity, esp. pp. 
34-41; J. A. Thomson, Outline of Science, Vol. I, pp. 245-290; Oesterreich, 
Das Weltbild der Gegenwart. 


108 PHYSICAL THINGS 


the discovery of radium by the Curies and Bémont in 1898 
there has been remarkable progress in the study of radio- 
activity and of the nature of the atom. 

Probably the average person who has heard of atoms re- 
gards them as tiny solid bodies, indivisible and impenetrable. 
Not so the modern physicist. For him, atoms may be as 
complex as a solar system and fairly swarm with extremely, 
small particles which carry electric charges. Each atom, he 
holds, has a nucleus, which is positively charged, and which 
is surrounded at some distance by one or more electrons. 
All electrons are negatively charged. If the naive realist still 
survives, he may grasp at the nucleus as a final “uncuttable,” 
the last hope of his way of thinking. The physicist, how- 
ever, has no mercy on the man who wants to stop thinking; 
and he proceeds to analyze the nucleus into protons and 
electrons. The physicist will tell us that the electron always 
bears a unit of negative electricity, and that the proton is 
positive and of much greater mass than the electron. The 
properties of the elements in the table of elements have 
been explained in terms of the number and arrangement of 
protons and electrons in each atom, and the proton has been 
shown to be the hydrogen nucleus. 

Modern science has thus opened a new micro-universe to 
human knowledge. The electro-magnetic theory of matter, 
as it is called, marks great advance in physics; it unifies our 
knowledge; it renders conceivable a future control of the 
forces now locked up in the atom; and it is an additional 
refutation of the uncritical realism and materialism based on 
blind trust of the senses. But does it answer our question, 
What are physical things? It tells us, indeed, that all things, 
no matter how stable and solid they may seem, be they rock 
or flint or diamond, are like electricity. It teaches us that 


PHILOSOPHY 109 


appearances are deceptive; that the physical universe is not 
sights and sounds and odors and solids, but,is one great store- 
house of electric energy. All the matter and energy that 
there is can be measured mathematically in terms of such 
physical quantities as are found in the realm of electricity. 
Yet here there seems to be an anti-climax. If we turn con- 
fidently to the physicist, thinking that he has solved the riddle 
of the universe, he replies, “As to the electron itself no ex- 
planation can be given” (Mills, p. 88). “The nature of the 
electron is unknown” (J. A. Thomson, Vol. I, p. 288). Some 
think of the electron in terms of energy only; others hold 
that in every electron.there is also a tiny solid particle of 
some sort (the ghost, we may call it, of naive realism). But 
energy is only the ability to perform work. If we reduce 
everything to energy, our thought is somewhat simplified, but 
the inner nature of energy, or that which produces it, the 
spring of its being, remains unknown. Indeed, science could 
not even form an hypothesis about the real nature of energy 
without trespassing on the problem and standpoint of philos- 
ophy; but the philosopher is unwilling to leave the problem 
where the scientist properly leaves it. 


§6. PHYSICAL THINGS AS THEY ARE FOR 
PHILOSOPHY 


Four possible philosophical methods were discussed in 
Chapter I,—the rationalistic, the scientific, the romantic, 
and the synoptic. In that discussion, the rationalistic and 
the romantic methods were shown to be unsound, although 
each contains something of value. ‘The scientific and the 
synoptic methods were shown to be valid, provided each is 
supplemented by the other. The scientific method was 


110 PHYSICAL THINGS 


subdivided into the experimental and the analytic, and the 
former was seen to be subsidiary to the latter. Fundamen- 
tally, then, there are two sound philosophical methods, the 
analytic and the synoptic, which depend on and supplement 
each other. One of the interesting facts about the history 
of thought is that philosophical analysis and synopsis have 
often anticipated the results of science. Philosophers saw 
the truth of evolution long before Darwin worked out his 
theory; and philosophers originated the atomic theory long 
before modern scientists verified it. Neither sense perception 
nor science gives a fully satisfactory account of physical 
things; perhaps the various types of philosophy may con- 
tribute something to our understanding of the red apple 
and the yellow primrose. 

(1) ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHIES. Democritus, whose works 
are unfortunately lost, was one of the great thinkers 
of the ancient world. He argued that no intellectual prog- 
ress could be made so long as the qualities perceived by the 
senses were regarded as ultimate. He held that thought alone 
could give us knowledge of what truly is; not, indeed, by 
ignoring perception, but by formulating the theory that best 
explains and includes perceptions. His theory aimed to 
preserve the facts of experience (S:aowserv Ta paivopeva), 
and also to make them intelligible to thought. His observa- 
tions of change led him to the conclusion that none of the 
perceived qualities of things could be regarded as really 
belonging to the things themselves except their property of 
filling space and moving therein. The red apple may be 
baked brown or burned black; neither the red nor the 
brown nor the black is essential to the apple; but whatever 
happens the matter of which the apple is composed must 
still fill space, and the different colors are no more than the 
effect of its spatial movements on the human mind. Hence 


PHILOSOPHY 111 


Democritus regards the sense qualities in general as effects 
of the qualities which the things possess in themselves, such 
as form, size, hardness or softness, and motion. The analytic 
mind of Democritus perceived that the gross objects that we 
confront in experience are complex structures, and he held 
that they were made up of tiny, indivisible objects called 
atoms. The smoothest and finest atoms compose fire and 
the human soul. Atoms, it will be noted, are accepted as real 
because the method of analysis is trusted as leading to the 
truth about reality. Atoms are what can’t be analyzed 
away. 

The view of Democritus is the first clear-cut expression of 
atomistic materialism. It has been very influential in the 
history of philosophy and has striking points of contact with 
modern scientific theories. Modern science, however, experi- 
ences more difficulty than did Democritus in assuring itself 
that something unanalyzable has been found. The more we 
know about things, the more complex our atoms appear to be. 

David Hume, who lived twenty-two centuries after 
Democritus, was an even more acutely analytic mind than 
the atomist of Abdera, and clung closer to the facts of experi- 
ence. Hume held that what we experience is literally all that 
we can know. We may talk about things and space and 
atoms all we please, but what we experience is not things in 
space. It is simply our conscious life. Consciousness he 
analyzed into impressions and ideas. Impressions are “all 
our sensations, passions, and emotions as they make their 
first appearance in the soul” and ideas are “‘the faint images 
of these in thinking and reasoning.” We know with cer- 
tainty nothing save impressions and ideas and their rela- 
tions; mind is therefore a collection of these elements, not a 
true unity. Thus the more rigorous analysis of Hume ban- 
ishes from the field of knowledge even the atoms of Democ- 


112 1 se 2 Mi as Bl il il SB 


ritus, and everything that we know about physical things 
is transferred to the realm of impressions and ideas. That 
is to say, we know nothing about things; we know only their 
effects on our mind; our analyses are directed toward our 
own ideas, not toward things. Thus in Hume’s hands the 
analytic method leads to skepticism. We can, he thinks, 
know nothing about things; we can know only our ideas. 
Further, we can experience nothing universal in our impres- 
sions and ideas; and such knowledge as we have is confined 
to particular impressions and ideas. 

In recent philosophy there has developed a new application 
of analytic method. Certain forms of the new realism, so- 
called, are based on this method combined with a monistic 
epistemology. Democritus and Hume were both dualists. 
Roughly speaking, this dualism had led the analysis of 
Democritus to reduce everything, including mind itself, to 
physical things in the form of atoms; the same method and 
theory of knowledge had led Hume to reduce knowledge of 
physical things to knowledge of particular states of mind, 
leaving the things themselves unknown. American new real- 
ism believes that the analytic method of these philosophers 
was sound, although their dualistic epistemology was fal- 
lacious. Being, says this view, is not in itself physical (as 
Democritus taught) or distinctively mental (as the know- 
able world of Hume was); it is neutral, neither physical nor 
mental. 

The “neutral entities’ of analytic neo-realism sound 
strange and ghostly; yet they are not wholly unintelligible. 
If we start with the given world of colors and sounds, of 
space and time, and analyze it, we arrive at ultimate terms 
(such as points and instants) that cannot be further 
analyzed. We find these terms in what we call our minds; 
and we find them in what we call the physical world. In- 


PHILOSORAY 113 


deed, there is nothing that we find in one of these orders that 
cannot also be found, in some form, in the other. Hence, 
argues the realist, reality is not essentially physical or essen- 
tially mental, but consists of entities that are neutral to the 
distinction between mind and matter. When these entities 
are grouped in certain relations they are physical things; 
when related in a specific way to a human organism, they 
may be called states of consciousness. 

All views that lay chief stress on the analytic method 
agree, we observe, in holding that the structure of knowable 
reality is atomic, discrete, granular. The world that we 
know is made up, they hold, of tiny, ultimate particles 
(whether spatial, like atoms; or conscious, like impressions; 
or neutral, like realistic entities), the complex interrelation- 
ships of which constitute our world. The way to understand 
a thing, the analysts believe, is to pulverize it (actually or 
in thought) and analyze the powder. 

There is no doubt that this method yields important 
results for practical life, science, and philosophy. There are, 
however, many thinkers who doubt whether this method of 
approach is likely to give us the whole truth about anything. 
It seems least likely to give the truth about organisms, 
whether biological or psychological; and many believe that 
the universe is in some sense organic and that analysis alone 
cannot account even for the simplest organic object. It is 
therefore important to consider the possible contributions 
of synoptic method to the understanding of physical things. 

(2) Synoptic Puttosopuies. The differences between 
the analytic and the synoptic ways of philosophizing are 
differences in the notion of what it means to understand any- 
thing.» The former type believes that understanding is a 


1 See W. M. Urban, “The Intelligible World.” Phil. Rev., 33 (1924), 
I-29, II5-142. 


114 PHYSICAL THINGS 


process of picking to pieces, of seeing how a thing works, as 
we say; the latter believes that nothing is thoroughly under- 
stood unless it is seen as a whole and its parts related to its 
functions and properties as a whole. The analyst holds that 
to understand is to dissect; the synoptist, that to understand 
is to know the living whole. The differences between them 
are partly a matter of emphasis; for the analyst must grant 
that a complete analysis includes those properties that belong 
to the whole as well as those belonging to the parts;* while 
the synoptist should be very clear that his view of the whole 
presupposes the work of analysis.? Yet the difference of em- 
phasis is very important and issues in different interpreta- 
tions of reality. 

The great Greek, Plato, a contemporary of Democritus, 
was an advocate of the synoptic method. Plato based his 
philosophy on the teaching of Socrates that the way to 
truth is to define clearly what we mean by the terms we use. 
The Socratic method was that of questioning men in order 
to elicit from them a definition of what they mean when 
they talk about courage, or piety, or justice. When a 
definition is found that applies to every case of courage and 
that any thinking man will accept, this is the “concept” of 
courage. Socrates was probably interested chiefly in ethical 
concepts; Plato extended the method and sought to find con- 
cepts that are valid for our thinking about all sorts of objects, 
—tables and chairs and souls and God. These concepts 
Plato usually calls Ideas. He believes * that Ideas are not 
mere states of mind, but are objects that are real and inde- 


1 As in Professor Spaulding’s chapter in The New Realism. 

2 As Sorley, in Moral Values and the Idea of God. 

3 There are wide differences among scholars in the interpretation of 
Plato, and the version given in the text is not accepted by all Platonists, 
All interpretations agree that Plato’s method was synoptic. 


PHILOSOPHY 115 


pendent. The Ideas are related in a system or “hierarchy,” 
at the head of which is the Idea of the Good. Everything 
must ultimately be understood in its relation to the Good. 
It is easy to see that Plato’s method is synoptic; but it is 
not so easy to see just what becomes of physical things in 
this synopsis. 

In order to grasp Plato’s view of red apples and yellow 
primroses, we need to approach him without modern pre- 
conceptions. He looked at the red apple and said to himself 
(if we may venture to read his thought), “Just as long as I 
confine my attention to this apple as it is, or cut up fine into 
atoms, or baked, or dried, I have nothing but brute fact 
in front of me. Brute fact is not comprehensible. If I am 
to understand, I must relate the apple to other apples and 
to other fruit; and all fruit to other forms of life, until I 
have discovered all the laws of relation implied by the apple. 
These will culminate in relation to the Ultimate Good; when 
I know this system of relations as a whole, I know what the 
apple is, no sooner. The definition of the laws of redness 
is the Idea of red; that of the laws of appledom is the Idea 
of apple. The really true and important thing about this 
red apple is not its existence here and now, but its place in 
a rational universe. The fact that I see a particular red 
apple on this tree this afternoon is true enough as appearance 
or ‘phenomenon’; but appearance is not reality. Appear- 
ance is a problem presented to us; reality is what solves the 
problem. The physical red apple is only appearance, a 
shadow cast by a reality other than itself.”” The phenomena 
that we call physical things come to be, Plato thinks, because 
the universal idea of apple and of the other physical objects 
somehow become involved with space and are reflected or 
embodied at particular locations in space. Empty space, 


116 PHYSITCALIUTRAINGS 


however, is, as every Greek philosopher would hold, simply 
non-being; it has no reality. Physical things, then, are a 
mixture of the universal Idea with non-being. 

Plato’s position is at first sight much less clear and plaus- 
ible than that of Democritus. A little reflection will, how- 
ever, show us that Plato is dealing with a side of rational 
experience that Democritus neglects. The progress of science 
has always been toward the formulation of universal laws 
rather than toward mere contemplation of the solid, impene- 
trable atom as an individual and separate fact. The only 
interest that the scientist has in molecules, atoms, electrons, 
or protons is that the acceptance of these entities enables 
him to work out mathematical laws about the behavior of 
matter. Modern science sees “the reign of law’; Plato saw 
Ideas. Both are more synoptic and more philosophical than 
any view that centers its attention on the material atoms, the 
dust of the universe, and ignores the universal rational prin- 
ciples that breathe into this dust the breath of life. 

Much, then, may be said for Plato’s method; but he went 
further in his speculations than the legitimate function of 
philosophy permits. The aim of philosophy is to interpret 
experience synoptically. Plato appears to have interpreted 
one side of experience, its universal and rational meaning, 
at the expense of the concrete, particular facts that remain 
stubborn realities of every day. For him, phenomena van- 
ish; Ideas remain. 

Leibniz, one of the great figures in the history of modern 
philosophy, applies the synoptic method in a different man- 
ner. The problems of thought in the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries were such that Leibniz expressed him- 
self in quite non-Platonic terms; but his mind was in many 


1 The discussion in the text exaggerates the difference between Democ- 
ritus and Plato in order to bring out the principle at stake. 


PHILOSOPHY 117 


respects of the Platonic type. Fortunately he was able to 
avoid some of Plato’s defects. Leibniz belonged to the school 
of continental rationalists of which Descartes was the 
founder. His interest, then, was in reason, in the universal, 
as was Plato’s. But his scientific training turned his mind to 
the concrete facts; and his opposition to the exclusively 
analytic methods of the British empiricists led him to aim at 
a philosophy that should synthesize the facts of concrete 
experience with the demands of synoptic thinking. 

The following exposition will interpret Leibniz freely and 
will not be confined to his modes of expression. At one 
fundamental point, held Leibniz, Plato was wrong; important 
as are universals, laws, Ideas, they are never concrete real- 
ity. Science also lays too much stress on laws. Reality is 
always particular, whether in the red apple or the human 
mind. Individuals are real; this is proved (as Descartes had 
shown) by the fact that I cannot deny my own existence. 
My self-existence is the most fundamentally certain fact; 
and it is no mere Idea or law: it is a particular individual. 
Furthermore, everything that we can reasonably call real 
is active; it behaves in a certain way, it changes. Atoms 
that never did anything would never help Democritus or 
any one else to explain this world of life and motion in which 
rest itself is but a form of motion. ‘Quod non agit, non 
existit. . . . La substance est un étre capable d’action.” * 

Hence, says Leibniz, the real is concrete, active individ- 
uality. He gives the name “monad” to every concrete, active 
individual; and his theory is called ‘“‘monadology.” There is, 
he holds, one monad that is known to us with immediate 
certainty, namely, our own personal conscious being. It has 


1 “What does not act, does not exist. . . . Substance is a being capable 
of action.” This theory is widely accepted in philosophical circles to-day. 
See J. Ward, Bowne, Boodin, and Leighton. 


118 PHYSICAL THINGS 


certain important traits; it is an organic, rational, synoptic 
unity, not a mere aggregate of sensations as the empiricists 
think; further, it is a self-experience. As self-experience, 
consciousness exists for itself alone. No atom of it can be 
separated and float off to some other context; none of it can 
be ladled out like soup and transferred to the dish of an- 
other mind. ‘The monads have no windows’’; no conscious- 
ness can enter my mind from without, nor can any leave my 
mind to dwell in some other mind. Within every monad is 
a seething mass of activity that “mirrors” the rest of the 
world, without anything from that world being able liter- 
ally to enter the mind. It is clear that Leibniz is a stalwart 
epistemological dualist. 

Having found these traits of the monads from a study of 
the human soul, Leibniz is convinced that all things may 
be explained on the supposition that reality is a system of 
monads. Some monads have the properties of activity and 
of “mirroring” the universe to a slight degree, while others 
act and mirror more adequately. 

It is interesting to note that Leibniz cannot leave his sys- 
tem at this point and be true to his synoptic principle, for, 
while each monad is a synoptic unity, the system of monads 
appears to be a chaos. If all monads are active and con- 
stantly changing within themselves, and yet have no windows 
and can never act on others, we appear to have analyzed the 
world into a separateness and looseness that rivals Democ- 
ritus and Hume, and leaves the systematic connections of 
things unexplained. Leibniz, however, was no better satis- 
fied with this separateness than is the reader of this chapter, 
and he argued that the many dependent monads would be 
impossible if there were not one supreme Monad on which 
all others depend. The separateness of the monads is de- 
manded by our self-experience; the unity of the monads 


PHILOSOPHY 119 


and their dependence on the Monad of monads, or God, is 
demanded by the synoptic nature of reason. 

We are not here concerned to work out the full implica- 
tions of this profound and fascinating philosophy. We wish 
only to know what he would tell us about the red apple and 
the yellow primrose. He would say, with Democritus and 
Plato and modern science, that the apple as it appears is not 
the real apple. The truth about the apple can be understood 
only when in our thinking about it we reach rational self- 
consistency. If we follow the track of Democritus, we come 
to atoms; whatever these atoms may be, says Leibniz, they 
must be concrete, active individuals that have an inner struc- 
ture and are, somehow, like mind; or at least they must be 
parts of such individuals. If we follow the track of Plato, 
we come to Ideas; however universal and valid Ideas may 
be, says Leibniz, they are real only in the activities of con- 
crete monads. But, he adds, Ideas are valid, and they drive 
us to the conception of a supreme, conscious, active intel- 
ligence, the Monad of monads, on which the existence and 
the apparent interaction of the monads depends. Physical 
things, then, are for Leibniz centers of energy which func- 
tion in harmony (“preéstablished harmony” he calls it) 
because of their dependence on the supreme mind. 

Enough has been said to illustrate the differences between 
the analytic and the synoptic ways of accounting for physical 
things. The analytic way accounts for the whole in terms 
of the parts; for the complex in terms of the simple; for the 
active in terms of the inactive. The synoptic way accounts 
for the parts in terms of the whole; for the simple in terms 
of the complex; for the inactive in terms of the active. 
Speaking broadly and using the language of values, we may 
say that analysis is explanation of the higher in terms of the 
lower, and is the method of what is called materialism; and 


120 PHYSICAL TaAtn.Gs 


synopsis is the explanation of the lower in terms of the 
higher, and is the method of idealism. 


$7. CONCLUSIONS ABOUT THE NATURE OF 
PHYSICAL THINGS 


All reasoned accounts of the world of physical things agree 
that things are not just what they appear to be. If we are 
to understand things as they are, we must analyze them 
and relate their parts to each other and to our view of the 
whole of reality. All agree that when we see a red apple, 
there is something “there” that is real and dependable and 
that somehow causes us to have the experience of a red 
apple. Democritus would make this causation direct, from 
object to mind; Leibniz would make it indirect, the Monad 
of monads being the true cause. All scientists and philos- 
ophers would agree that an observed physical thing is noth- 
ing ultimate; for science, the whole world of physical objects 
consists of inconceivable quintillions of quintillions of elec- 
trons and protons, grouped in more or less stable clusters of 
energy systems, but all belonging to one great system that we 
call the physical universe. It serves the interests of us 
human beings to pick out certain of the minor clusters and 
call them things. If our bodies had happened to be as small 
as an electron, what we now call one thing,—a grain of salt, 
a drop of water—would be a universe of complexity. If our 
body were as large as the sun, and our life-time as long as 
its, this whole earth would seem to be one tiny thing under- 
going strange alterations; mountains and valleys would rise 
and fall like the waves of the ocean. Whatever may be 
the truth about Einstein’s doctrine, the relativity of the world 
of things is a truth that cannot escape any one who views 
the facts in perspective. 


CONCLUSIONS 121 


From the study of physical things has been won the fur- 
ther insight that they are an interacting system. To be a 
thing, as Leibniz held, means to act on other things. What 
does not act does not exist. It is difficult for the mind to 
grasp the idea that being is activity, for we like to think 
of “something” that moves and “has” the activity, like the 
atoms of Democritus. Even the most modern science usually 
speaks of an electron as a charged “particle.” The status 
of the particle is, however, obscure. Either it does work 
and is through and through active; or it does no work and 
so is superfluous. If the particle performs no function other 
than to be a bearer of energy, it is otiose. How can it bear 
or carry energy without doing any work? How could there 
be a real particle anywhere that made no difference anywhere 
else? The particle may be a crutch to the imagination; it is 
only a stumbling-block to the understanding. All the work 
done by “matter” is energy; the particle makes no differ- 
ence. Its presence adds nothing; its absence would not be 
noticed. Such an entity cannot be said to belong in the 
system of nature. 

If things are what atomistic materialists make them out 
to be, the relations between atoms and their activities or 
properties is incomprehensible. An unchangeable thing could 
never act or serve as the basis of an explanation of unchang- 
ing qualities. The electro-magnetic theory of matter and 
philosophical analysis alike point to the conception that 
the world is a system of activity in accordance with law. 

There are many indications that Leibniz was right when 
he suggested that this activity is of the nature of mind. 
The physical changes of things are in accordance with laws 
that can be stated mathematically. It is rational in the 
sense that mind can know it and mind finds order in it. It 
is an interacting system that organizes many elements into 


P22 PHYSICA LTRRTN GS 


rational wholes so as to realize ends, just as a mind does. 
A; scientist, writing without any philosophical prejudices, has 
recently said that “atoms give one the impression of a 
delicacy and complexity of structure suggestive almost of 
the complexity of personality.” * It has been the view of 
many philosophies and of most religions that the world of 
visible things is the expression to our mind of the activity 
of a Supreme Mind, so that nature is, as Berkeley says, a 
divine language. 

It is not necessary at this point to decide whether the 
idealistic account of physical things be true or false. It is, 
however, important to remember that the case for material- 
ism rests on the analytic method, and the case for idealism on 
the synoptic; and that there is much evidence for idealism. 
The system of things is active like a mind; changes, like a 
mind; is coherent and rational like a mind; and within 
limits mind can use it. Yet it would be over-hasty to con- 
clude that ultimate reality is therefore a mind. Thus far 
only physical things have been’ considered, and we should 
take other aspects of reality into account. A synoptic view 
must include all the facts. Besides physical things, there are 
universals and values, and there are self-conscious beings. 
After a study of these other types of being, the question 
will arise, What kind of universe must this be if all these 
parts are to dwell together in the whole? 


1 Comstock in Comstock and Troland, The Nature of Matter pi 
Electricity, p. 5. 


CHAPTER V 
WHAT ARE UNIVERSALS AND VALUES? 


SI. ON ABSTRACTION 


When we leave familiar physical things, rendered less 
familiar by the analyses of science and philosophy, and 
inquire into what are called universals, we have reached one 
of the central problems of philosophy, and one that is pecul- 
iarly forbidding to many minds. Abstract thought is not 
lightly to be entered on; nor is it easy to carry through. 
Reflection on universals carries us far into the region where 
what are commonly called abstractions dwell. 

If the conscientious objector to abstract thinking be 
asked what he means by the word abstract, he might be suf- 
ficiently self-consistent to reply that, since a definition is an 
abstraction, his principles will not allow him to define any 
term. But his common sense will doubtless prove too much 
for his logic, and he will then say that an abstraction is 
anything that cannot be immediately perceived. Particular 
concrete things, like hammers, nails, automobiles, and black- 
boards may be perceived and referred to by every one from 
mechanic to millionaire; every one knows what is meant 
when such things are mentioned. But abstractions, like 
solidity considered apart from the hammer, pointedness 
which is not the pointedness of any one nail, but pointedness 
in general,—these things cannot be seen with the eye, and 
they confuse the average mind. Science and rational thought 


are, however, impossible without abstractions in this sense; 
123 


124 UNIVERSALS AND VALUES 


but public education does little to develop the power of 
abstract thinking. Philosophy shows that the mind must 
either think abstractly or abandon any attempt seriously to 
understand itself or its world. Caliban’s theology applies 
here; ‘“‘discover how, or die.” 

Philosophy, under the influence of Hegel, has introduced 
a change in the terminology that is very useful for the pur- 
poses of thought, but superficially confusing. When philos- 
ophy talks about abstract and concrete, it commonly does not 
mean by these terms what our discussion has just been taking 
them to mean. By the abstract, philosophy usually means 
anything taken apart from the connection in which it be- 
longs; by the concrete, anything seen in its proper setting 
and in its connections with the rest of reality. For instance, 
a toothache considered as a present, acute pain is abstract; 
the same toothache, understood as an illustration of the laws 
of nervous substance and psychology, is concrete. When 
Newton saw the apple fall, the experience was merely ab- 
stract, until he began to connect the falling apple with the 
laws of universal gravitation. Hence, while philosophy is 
abstract, in the popular sense of dealing with what cannot 
be perceived by sense, it is the most concrete of subjects, if 
by concrete we mean connected and reasonably organized. 

Having discussed physical things, which are concrete in 
the popular sense, but abstract philosophically, we shall 
proceed in this chapter and the next to discuss universals and 
values and consciousness, which are abstract in the popular 
sense, but philosophically more concrete. 


§ 2. DEFINITION OF TERMS 


By a universal (or concept) is meant a term that applies 
to every member of the class that it defines. It thus includes 


DEFINITIONS 125 


what logic calls singular or individual terms, and general 
terms.’ A singular term is one that can be applied with the 
same meaning to only one object. The term, “Fourth of 
July, 1927, at four o’clock in the morning,” is a singular 
term, because there is only one such object; but it is a univer- 
sal because the term applies to everymember of the class that 
it defines. Usually, however, when we talk about universals 
we mean general terms, or their meanings; a general term is 
one that applies to more than one object. “Gunpowder,” 
“man,” “asteroid,” “electron,” and “happiness” are general 
terms. All general terms are universals. 

A universal, then, may apply to any number of particulars 
in the real world, from zero and one up to an indefinite num- 
ber. In the real universe there is no Humpty Dumpty, there 
is one Abraham Lincoln, there is an indefinite number of 
grains of sand; yet Humpty Dumpty, Abraham Lincoln, and 
grain of sand is each a universal. 

Universals have certain important traits. They cannot be 
perceived by the senses, and so may be called supersensible 
or supersensuous. Even a universal like “the present gover- 
nor of Ohio,” defining a class with one member is super- 
sensuous; for, though the governor may be seen, the truth 
that he is the only member of a class must be apprehended 
_ by an act of the mind that is neither a percept nor is capable 
of being perceived by the senses. Since they cannot be 
located in space or time, they may be called space-transcend- 
ing and time-transcending. The particular objects to which 
the universal applies, Humpty Dumpty or the grain of sand, 
may of course be located at some imaginary or real “there 


1See Robinson, Principles of Reasoning, pp. 20f. A certain am- 
biguity in the use of the term universal is hardly to be avoided. Some- 
times it means the word (or symbol) that embodies a concept, and some- 
times it means the traits of being defined by the universal. The interest 
of our discussion centers in the latter. 


126 UNIVERSALS AND VALUES 


and then” or “here and now”’; but the universal “grain of 
sand” does not exist at any particular place or time; it is a 
truth or meaning always and everywhere valid of its object, 
whether its object be at hand or not. The universal fact 
that ‘‘imperial Cesar lived” is true at all times and places, 
although imperial Cesar himself be now ‘‘dead and turn’d to 
clay.’ Hence universals are often said not to exist, but to 
subsist; not to be located anywhere at any time, but to be 
valid everywhere all the time. During the world war a 
German philosopher derived comfort from the reflection that, 
although every existing thing that we prize be destroyed, the 
realm of subsistent universals, of truth and ideals, will 
remain. Whether or not this comfort be what we call “solid” 
is matter for reflection. © 

In this chapter, values, as well as universals, are to be dis- 
cussed. By a value (or worth, or good) is meant whatever 
is desired, or enjoyed, or prized, or approved, or preferred. 
This, at least, will serve as a preliminary definition. 

We should remember that supposed universals and values 
may be neither truly universal nor truly valuable. Any in- 
correct definition, for example, is a supposed universal that 
is not truly universal; and the baby crying for the moon 
seeks a supposed value that is not truly valuable. Yet we 
live and think on the assumption that there are valid univer- 
sals and true values. It is the task of this chapter to test 
this assumption. 


§ 3. WHY SHOULD UNIVERSALS AND VALUES 
BE STUDIED TOGETHER? 


Before going on with the task just mentioned we should 
add a further word of preliminary explanation. In this 
chapter, universals and values are grouped together; yet 


UNIVERSALS AND VALUES 127 


they are, in certain respects, different from each other. 
Some values are particular individuals or experiences. They 
are concrete, in the every-day sense of the word. Of course 
universals are factors in our thought about values, just as 
they are factors in our thought about physical things and 
conscious persons. But universals and values are not iden- 
tical; why, then, should they be studied together? Have 
they anything in common? 

One reason for their being grouped together is that both 
universals and values are clearly distinct from physical 
things. We have already shown that this is true of univer- 
sals. It is also true of values. A physical thing may, of 
course, be valued; but its value is not identical with its 
mere existence. Much that exists ought not to; and much 
that does not exist ought to. Many, if not most, of the 
values of life are ideal objects of the mind’s own texture, not 
material objects at all. 

Universals and values are also to be distinguished from 
persons in any preliminary study. Persons are particular 
individuals; they are not what we commonly mean by univer- 
sals, although they think in terms of universals. The rela- 
tion of values and persons is more apparent. It may turn 
out that all persons are values, and that all values are “for, 
of, or in, a person.”* It nevertheless remains true that to 
be self-conscious and to be valuable are different meanings, 
in spite of the fact that these meanings may turn out to 
apply to the same reality. 

Thus we see why universals and values are grouped to- 
gether. They are aspects of experience to be distinguished 
both from physical things and from conscious persons; yet 
they occupy a certain relating and mediating position be- 
tween the two. They are concerned with the spaceless and 


1T. H. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 210. 


128 UNIVERSALS AND VALUES 


eternal. They function similarly in that each is a way of 
finding meaning both in things and in persons. Finally, each 
has a special affinity for conscious personality; for a person 
is an individual that universalizes, and an individual that, in 
itself, has value. 


§4. ARE UNIVERSALS REAL? 


We turn first to the study of universals. If we approach 
the problem from the point of view of the history of philos- 
ophy, we find one of the earliest and most persistent of 
questions to be: Are universals real? Plato tells us that, 
in the heaven above the heavens, ‘‘there abides the very being 
with which true knowledge is concerned; the colorless, form- 
less, intangible essence, visible only to mind, who is the 
pilot of the soul.” * Aristotle, however, brings the universals 
down from this lofty heaven and locates them “‘in the partic- 
ulars that share them.”? The debate between Plato and 
Aristotle was handed on to the scholastic philosophers of the 
Middle Ages, one party of whom said, Universalia sunt 
vealia,® and another, Universalia sunt nomina.* The former 
were called realists, the latter nominalists. The realists fur- 
nished theology with a basis for doctrines of the church uni- 
versal, of Adam and Christ as representing universal human- 
ity, of the presence of the body of Christ as a real universal in 
the particular elements used in the sacrament (doctrine of 
transubstantiation). The nominalists emphasized particular 
facts; they encouraged the scientific investigation of nature. 
It would, however, be superficial to paint realism as all 
black and nominalism as all white. The problem concerns 


1 Phedrus, 247C, tr. Jowett. 

2 Metaphysics, I, 991a, tr. Ross. 

’“Universals are real.” 

*“Universals are names,” 7. e., names for properties of particulars. 


UNIVERSAL AND PARTICULAR 129 


more than medieval theology; it concerns the very nature 
and meaning of thought. 

It is not hard to see why the question about the reality of 
universals is asked. In general, we believe that anything 
is real to which coherent thought refers. The world of fairies 
is real enough for the child’s imagination; but it is not objec- 
tively real, because it contains much that is contradictory 
with our world of experience as a whole. Space is (in some 
sense) real, in so far as it is a coherent system, consistent 
with all my experience and thinking. Are not universals 
also realP Does not thought refer to universals? Are not 
valid universals coherent within themselves and with every- 
thing else? Are not they the very type and model of rea- 
sonableness? Is there any test of reality that universals fail 
to meet? 

It is well to approach the problem by trying to consider 
the relations of the universal and the particular. In almost 
every mind there is a strong “common-sense” prejudice in 
favor of particulars. Particulars, we naturally feel, are 
facts; universals are pale and ghostly shadows and servants 
of particulars. Most of us belong to the class of the “tough- 
minded,” in which James proudly enrolled himself. Yet we 
should allow neither pride nor prejudice to settle any ques- 
tion in philosophy; and we shall proceed, as well as we may, 
to an impartial study of the question. 


85. RELATIONS OF UNIVERSAL AND PARTICULAR 


(1) THe CasE For NoMINALIsM. Apart from popular 
prejudice, there is much that makes it appear that nominal- 
ism is true and that universals are merely names for quali- 
ties of particulars. Most, if not all, of our concepts are 
clearly based on observation of particular things. The con- 


130 UNIVERSALS AND VALUES 


cept “blue” is utterly meaningless to a blind man and is 
based wholly on our experience of particular blue objects. 
Those more complicated universals to which we give the 
name “laws of nature” are also based on observation of fact. 
If no apples or babies or cradles ever fell down, there would 
be no law of falling bodies. If there were no concrete living 
beings, there would be no law of evolution. It would seem 
that the business of the general law is to tell, in what has 
been called “mental shorthand,” how the particulars act. 
In so far as the law goes beyond that, it is neither useful nor 
true. 

Nominalism calls attention to the fact that the theoretical 
reason is not content to stay in its place. Universals do not 
like to be told that they are merely brief names for a large 
number of particulars. They like to assert themselves as in- 
dependent members of society.*. This self-assertion of theirs 
has led to serious errors in thinking. Philosophers and scien- 
tists alike have often fallen prey to the tendency to treat 
an abstract concept or universal as a real being. When they 
do this, they are said to hypostatize the concept, 7. é., ta 
treat it as a substance. The result has been a great deal of 
specious and verbal theorizing. We easily believe that the 
laws and forces of which science speaks are real beings; if 
we do not keep watch, we find ourselves conceiving of gravity 
as a real power of some sort that pulls or pushes bodies to- 
ward the earth: whereas gravity is only a name for the way 
the bodies fall. It is impossible to attach any definite mean- 
ing to gravity or to any force of which science speaks, if it be 
regarded as a being distinct from the particulars to which 
it applies. 

Both on positive and negative grounds, nominalism is 


1 See Bowne’s illuminating discussion of the fallacy of the universal 
and of abstraction, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, pp. 239-262. 


UNIVERSAL AND PARTICULAR | 131 


able to argue persuasively. Positively, it urges that univer- 
sals derive their meaning from particulars; and negatively, 
it shows that failure to recognize this fact has led to erroneous 
and mythological theories and explanations. But before we 
come to a decision, we should hear what realism has to say. 

(2) Tue CAsE For REALISM. Realism appears to be 
diametrically opposed to nominalism. It asserts that univer- 
sals are real and that particulars derive their meaning from 
universals. 

The realist may well begin his argument by a criticism of 
nominalism. The latter, he admits, is plausible, but it is not 
so simple as first appears. If all our knowledge is of par- 
ticulars, and all that universals have to say about particulars 
is derived from actual experience of particulars themselves, 
there arises a strange incoherence within our thinking. The 
nominalist, then, would have to say (with Hume in his most 
rigorous mood) that knowledge is confined to the particulars 
that have been experienced. If nominalism is strictly true, 
there is no ground for any knowledge of the future; science 
cannot use laws (which are universals) to predict eclipses, 
or tides, or sunrise and sunset, or the strain to which a given 
bridge may safely be subjected. It is true (as the nominalist 
may urge) that the laws apply to particulars; but it is not 
true (the realist may reply) that their truth consists in or 
is based wholly on the actual particulars that have been or 
will be experienced. A true universal applies to an indef- 
inite number of particulars beyond all that are subject matter 
of actual experience. Even if all possible particulars falling 
under a universal had been experienced and counted, the ex- 
pression of this so-called “complete induction” would not 
be a true universal unless it contained more than the asser- 
tion that all the actual particulars had been observed; the 
true universal would add the thought that all possible cases 


132 UNIVERSALS AND VALUES 


were included, and no mere enumeration of particulars fur- 
nishes ground for such an assertion. 

Putting the case briefly, we may say that strict nominal- 
ism makes all true universals and laws impossible ;. hence, 
if nominalism be true, mathematics, the natural sciences, and 
all reasoning, are fundamentally untrue. William James 
undertook to remedy this situation by suggesting that rela- 
tions as well as terms are objects of immediate experience.’ 
This suggestion is true enough, but it is not the desired 
remedy; for genuine universals cannot be made out of par- 
ticular relations any better than out of particular terms. 
Extreme nominalism, which is logically an extension of em- 
piricism, then, is untrue, if science or any real knowledge 
beyond the present moment be possible. One’s whole intel- 
lectual world surely would collapse and coherence change to 
chaos, if one undertook seriously to deny validity to science. 
This result, it may be noted, is of great significance if true, 
for much contemporary philosophy, e. g., the pragmatic 
movement, is essentially nominalistic. 

The realist does not consider his position established 
merely because he can attack nominalism. He believes that 
he can show adequate positive reasons for his own view. 
It is clear, he holds, that we think in universals. We do not 
have a separate name for each particular thing; consistent 
nominalism in language would destroy thought and communi- 
cation with others. Even our proper names are words that 
may be applied to more than one object. Many a man and 
many a dog has been named Julius Cesar. Our mind is so 
constructed that it cannot escape from the net of universals; 
it cannot designate any particular fact without concepts that 
somehow relate this particular to something universal. ‘This 


1 See James, Essays in Radical Empiricism, Ch. III on “The Thing and 
its Relations.” 


UNIVERSAL AND PARTICULAR = § 133 


pain that I feel” is excruciatingly particular; but every word 
I use has been used before and in some sense is a universal. 
“Pain?” Yes; this word relates my pain to the properties of 
pain in general. “I?” Yes; for the pronoun designates a 
member of the class of “selves.” 

Further, say some realists, if you analyze the particular, 
you come upon the universal. Our analysis of matter, for 
example, came to electrons and protons; the photograph of 
your beloved may appear very particularly individual to your 
eye; but that photograph is entirely made up of electrons 
and protons. An electron is very nearly a universal; all elec- 
trons are alike, have the same properties, embody the elec- 
tronic law. Carry the analysis further, and the space oc- 
cupied by the electron is found to be made up of mathe- 
matical points. A point is a true universal, a “neutral en- 
tity,” says the new realist; and the world of being is made up 
of such universals, 

This neo-realistic account is too extreme for many; it 
wipes out too completely the distinction between universal 
and particular. But, even if it be rejected, the realist may 
assert that science, rendered impossible by nominalism, be- 
comes possible if realism be accepted. If there are genuine 
universals, the universe is rational; as some one has said, 
it is “put together mind-wise.”” This consideration may be, 
and often has been, made one of the bases for an ideal- 
istic world view,—i. e., the belief that mind is the funda- 
mental reality in the universe. It would be difficult to show 
that this argument has no force. 

Nevertheless after all this and much more has been said 
for realism, the ordinary mind revolts from the realistic 
conclusion and finds some allies among the philosophers. 
This may be called the revolt of common sense. The leaders 
of the revolt would admit the plausibility of the argument for 


134 UNIVERSALS AND VALUES 


the reality of universals, but might remind the philosopher 
that it is his business to interpret experience, not to juggle 
concepts. However smooth be the way to realism, he might 
continue, real experience is bumpy with particulars. The 
obstinate facts that we meet are definite and concrete. Our 
theories must fit the facts or be false; one fact, be it ever so 
humble, may ruin theories held for centuries; one particular 
may undermine the loftiest universal. 

Further, the leaders of the revolt may add, it is sheer 
nonsense to talk about the reality of universals. Pain I 
know; but always as particular pain,—backache, stomach- 
ache, toothache. But pain in general,—what is it? Pain 
universal, that is no one’s, anywhere, at any time! To sup- 
pose such pain real is to contradict the very nature of pain. 
The same objections may be urged against the reality of uni- 
versal bread, universal apple, or universal goodness. It is 
impossible for the mind to conceive the reality of an abstract 
universal, apart from all particulars. The universal can 
mean only the actual or possible particulars; apart from 
them, it is nothing. 

(3) A SynTHETIC View. It appears from the discus- 
sion thus far that the realist can refute the nominalist and the 
nominalist the realist. It also appears that each can prove 
his own point. If this appearance were the last word, reason 
would have to surrender to unreason, and we should have 
to say that experience was at this point contradictory and 
meaningless. Is there no way out? 

We may take our starting point from the last argument 
urged by “‘the revolt of common sense.” Universals apart 
from particulars are, we may admit, nonsense. The non- 
sense can be avoided only by regarding the universal as a 
kind of particular. Hence, we may safely agree with Aristotle 
that the universal is to be found in the particular, not apart 


UNDVER SAT AN DPA REL CU LA Ry 4485 


from it. If we are trying to answer the question of meta- 
physics, our problem would then assume the form: Is there, 
in reality, a particular that can be coherently conceived as 
containing or expressing a universal? Physical things are 
merely particulars. Universal laws may be true of things, 
but these laws are mere descriptions of the way particular | 
things act. Universals seem to be forced into a realm 
apart and to have no place in things. What we need is a 
particular that is more than particular; and a universal that 
is not isolated from the particulars. In other words, if our 
thought is to be coherent, we need what the Hegelians call 
a “concrete universal’; a universal that is the meaning and 
soul of the particulars; a particular that is universalizing. 

If we consider what the evolutionary process is, we shall 
discover a clew to our problem. According to the hypotheses 
commonly regarded by men of science as reasonably verified, 
the history of the material universe may be traced from a 
state when all was “star-dust,”’ or nebulous matter, through 
the process of the formation of solar systems,—and the age- 
long development of life, of consciousness, of reason and con- 
science. The point significant for our problem is that the 
process of evolution is striving in precisely the same direc- 
tion as is our problem of the universal and the particular. 
The “star-dust” is relatively homogeneous, like universals; 
it is not particularized. Then as evolution progresses nature 
appears to strive to embody universal laws in more concrete 
particulars; as world-time advances the particular becomes 
more important. One molecule of star-dust, or one electron 
is just like another; but our sun is not just like Betelgeuse, 
nor the earth like Mars; on the earth, as life develops, the 


1See Thomson, The Outline of Science; Bergson, Creative Evolution; 
Morgan, Emergent Evolution; Hoernlé, Matter, Life, Mind and God; 
and Alexander, Space, Time and Deity. 


136 UNIVERSALS AND VALUES 


difference between one amceba and another is less significant 
than the difference between one ant and another; as we 
mount the scale, individuality becomes more and more im- 
portant. The shepherd “knoweth his sheep by name”; and 
every human individual acquires, in the eyes of the more 
noble members of the race, an intrinsic value. Nature seems 
to be saying to us: “I act in accordance with universals, but 
I do not fully express what I mean until I have shown you 
how universals are embodied in individual personal con- 
sciousness.” 

If we take nature’s hint, we shall be inclined to look on 
mind, the latest “emergent” of the evolutionary process, as 
a possible solution of our problem. Personal rational con- 
sciousness is indeed a universalizing particular; that is, mind 
is a concrete individual, one function of which is to grasp 
the meaning of universals. 

It is necessary to examine the foregoing suggestion care- 
fully in order to determine how much it amounts to in help- 
ing us out of our difficulties. About one fact there can be 
no doubt, namely, that a mind can pick out certain factors 
from particulars and build up abstract universals which are 
relative to the particulars. If our minds were wholly con- 
fined to particulars, no thinking could take place; we should 
be clogged with facts, and interpretation would be impos- 
sible. But we may go further and show that a mind can 
also think in universals that genuinely express its own essence 
or the essence of reality, or both. The first kind of universal 
is illustrated when I say, ‘“This snake is green.” “Green” isa 
universal of sense, abstracted from particulars and relative 
to them. The second kind is illustrated when I say, “Truth 
is coherent” or “The sum of the angles of a triangle equals 
two right angles.” In the latter instance I am saying some- 
thing universal that is not derived from observation of par- 


UNIVERSAL AND PARTICULAR .§ 137 


ticulars, but from the universal structure of thought. Mind, 
then, by its very structure, has to recognize the truth of some 
universals as independent of particulars. It is the nature of 
mind to be capable of thinking in terms of universals. 

This conclusion, however, does not solve the problem about 
the objects to-which our concepts refer. It tells us that 
mind universalizes; indeed, that, so far as we know, mind is 
the only reality that can universalize; but it does not en- 
lighten us about the nature of the real world which minds 
are describing with their universals. 

(4) MertapHysicaL Outcomes. The real world must be 
such as to include and explain these facts about universals 
and particulars. As a result of our discussion we are pre- 
pared to state and examine briefly the outstanding types of 
metaphysical theory that try to account for these facts. 

(a) Atomism. The simon-pure nominalist analyzes his 
universals into particulars, and the name “atom” is given to 
the most particular particulars that cannot be further 
analyzed. As we found in Chapter IV, atomism has taken 
both materialistic and idealistic forms. Materialistic atom- 
ism says that the ultimate particulars are solid physical 
objects, occupying space (Democritus); psychological atom- 
ism says that the ultimate (knowable) particulars are states 
of consciousness, probably sensations (Hume). Atomistic 
views fail because they are incapable of including or explain- 
ing the universalizing function of mind. 

(b) Platonic Realism.’ Platonic, or medieval, realism 
holds that universals are real apart from all particulars. In 
American neo-realism there is an interesting fusion of atom- 
ism with Platonic realism, in which, however, the realistic 
element has the upper hand. These views suffer from two 


1The term “Platonic” does not intend to commit Plato himself to 
this view; it is, however, the common interpretation of Plato. 


138 UNIVERSALS AND VALUES 


defects; first, the unintelligibility of universals apart from 
all particulars and all minds; and, secondly, the fact that 
they do not do justice by the particulars. 

(c) Personalism. There remains the view which sug- 
gests, as a solution to this problem and indeed to the other 
antinomies of thought, that the whole universe is personal; 
it is made up of a mind or minds and their experiences. 
This view, in one form or another, has been held by many 
thinkers of the past and present, such as Malebranche, 
Berkeley, Leibniz, Fichte, Hegel, Lotze, T. H. Green, James 
Ward, McTaggart, Eucken, Royce, Miss Calkins, Ladd, 
Bowne, Richardson, and others. It is, of course, not to be 
accepted because it has been widely held; only if it is the 
most reasonable and coherent account of the facts are we 
bound to regard it as true. Atomism makes reality granular, 
crummy, disjointed, with no real connections and laws; 
Platonic realism makes reality organic, connected and 
rational, but unfortunately provides no place for any par- 
ticular facts or events. Personalism finds room both for 
particular facts and for universals; for it is the nature of 
mind to be an individual that universalizes. Mind experi- 
ences particulars and relates them to laws. If all that is— 
physical things, universals and particulars and values—be 
of the nature of mind, it is then possible that universals are 
true of reality; for they refer to other mind or minds func- 
tioning rationally as mine functions, yet also individual as 

1The term personalism will be objected to in this connection by 
some idealists. If it be remembered, however, that sensationalistic 
idealism is provided for under atomism, and certain interpretations of 
absolute idealism under Platonic realism, it will be seen that personalistic 
idealism is the only general type not previously discussed. It is inter- 
esting to note that an absolute idealist like Bosanquet not infrequently 
expresses himself in personalistic language, as when he says, “A feeling 
mind is necessary to individuality,’ Logic, Vol. 2, p. 199a. The term 


personalism is preferred to the older, but unfortunately ambiguous, 
spiritualism. 


AXIOLOGY 139 


mine is. Universals then are real; but they are real only in 
and for particular minds. ‘This result, important as it is, 
must be held tentatively until we have examined both values 
and persons. We turn at once to the study of value. 


§6. PROBLEMS ABOUT VALUE (AXIOLOGY) 


Ever since man began to think he has been concerned 
about the question, What is truly good or valuable? The 
whole history of ethics has been a continuous study of the 
problem; it has occupied a central place in the thinking of 
men like Plato and St. Augustine, Spinoza, Kant, and Fichte. 
It is not until relatively recent years, however, that the study 
of the theory of value (or axiology, as it is called) has come 
to the foreground of philosophical attention as a distinct 
problem. In the 1870’s and 1880’s, under the influence of 
such diverse minds as Lotze, Ritschl, Nietzsche, and students 
of economics, men began to think more explicitly about 
values. Meinong’s work from 1894 on, followed by that of 
Ehrenfels (1897-98) and others, stimulated psychological 
interest. Hoffding’s Philosophy of Religion (tr. 1906) 
called new attention to the relations of value and religion. 
In 1909, Urban’s Valuation and Miunsterberg’s Eternal 
Values were published. From that time on, a vast amount of 
work has been done. In addition to those mentioned, Win- 
delband, Rickert, Scheler, Stern, and others are conspicuous 
in Germany; in Great Britain Moore, Schiller, Pringle-Pat- 
tison, Sorley, and Bosanquet; in Italy, Croce; in the United 
States, Hocking, G. P. Adams, Dewey, Perry, Spaulding, 
Wells, and Picard. Indeed, one would have to call a fairly 
complete roll of contemporary philosophers to exhaust the 
list of students of axiology. 

It is evident that the problem of value is both important 


140 UNIVERSALS AND VALUES 


and difficult. Some of the questions that require answering 
are the following: What goes on in consciousness when we 
value anything (psychology of valuation)? What are the 
values of life, and how are they to be classified? How may 
we determine what is the most valuable end for human living 
(2. €., what is the standard of value?)? What is the relation 
between values (what ought to be) and existence (what is) ? 
Are values merely subjective—satisfying subjective desire or 
need, or are values objective—in some sense other than my 
desire and giving law and standard to it? What is the rela- 
tion between value and personality?—Are values independent 
of persons, or do they exist only in and for persons? No 
more than a brief discussion of these problems is possible 
within the limits of this chapter. 


87. PSYCHOLOGY OF VALUATION 


In the main, psychological accounts of valuation may 
be classified as hedonistic, voluntaristic, formalistic, and 
synoptic. 

(1) Heponistic THrEor1Es. From Aristippus and Epi- 
curus to Bentham and Meinong, there have always been 
men who have argued that we assign value to what pleases 
us; value and pleasure are, they hold, identical. Whatever 
words we may use,—good, value, satisfaction, approval, 
preference—all reduce to pleasure, say hedonists. That this 
analysis is not wholly adequate is evident from the fact that 
some pleasures (such as pleasure in the suffering of another) 
are bad; and that our pleasures depend on our ideals, so 
that we discriminate between good and bad pleasures, and 
can learn to find pleasure in what conforms to the ideal. 

(2) VoLUNTARISTIC THEORIES. From Aristotle and Spi- 
noza to Ehrenfels and modern pragmatism there have been 


PSYCHOLOGY OF VALUATION 141 


representatives of the voluntaristic view. Voluntarism holds 
that value is not the mere feeling of pleasure, but is whatever 
satisfies desire or fulfills purpose. This view, however, 
usually admits that pleasure (or happiness) is associated 
with the realization of desire and is not so radically opposed 
to hedonism as first appears. The voluntaristic account is 
regarded as inadequate by its critics on the ground that 
many desires clearly ought not to be fulfilled, and that value 
is experienced in their frustration rather than in their realiza- 
tion; and that some value (such as esthetic) has nothing 
to do with desire. 

(3) Formatistic THEORIES. From the Cynics and 
Stoics to Kant and Royce there have been men who found 
true value only in a rational will. This theory is called 
rationalism, rigorism, or formalism. In a sense formalism 
is voluntaristic, for it holds that value resides in will only. 
But it differs from voluntarism in that it denies that all ful- 
fillment of desire is valuable; it holds that only the attitude 
of a rational and self-consistent will is truly valuable. Alli 
other value is relative to this. Loyalty to the obligation to 
be rational is the one and only value for formalism. 

Each of the three theories thus far mentioned has, it is 
generally agreed, some element of truth in it; we value 
pleasure, and values usually please or satisfy; we usually 
regard what fulfills our desires as valuable; and our intel- 
lectual conscience refuses to view any experience as truly 
valuable if it expresses self-contradictory attitudes of will. 
Yet each theory is one-sided and partial: hedonism attaches 
worth to feeling alone; voluntarism to realization of desire 
alone; formalism to rational will alone. Each neglects or 
underemphasizes actual aspects of the experience of value 
in its special interest in one aspect. | 

(4) Synoptic THrEoriEs. ‘The theories called synoptic 


142 UNIVERSALS AND VALUES 


try to do justice by all the facts of value experience. Such 
theories recognize the presence of hedonic, volitional, and 
intellectual factors in valuation, but hold that pleasure and 
desire and obligation are all organized and interpreted by an 
ideal that the mind forms, whereby pleasures and desires are 
judged as good or bad. This ideal is fundamentally an ideal 
of personality,"—a conception of the kind of person that 
one approves and ought to become. It is made up by the 
organization and synthesis of other ideals,—of truth, charac- 
ter, beauty, and the like. The ideal-forming function of the 
mind has had a long development from the earliest and 
most primitive to the most highly developed types. For this 
theory, however, the important thing is not to be able to 
draw a definite and final map of the ideal that is beyond 
all possibility of further development; the important thing 
is that man, from the dawn of history, is a builder of synoptic 
ideals, capable of organizing his whole life around a concep- 
tion of what he ought to be. 


§ 8. WHAT DO WE VALUE? 


If philosophy be an interpretation of experience as a 
whole, it is of philosophical importance to answer the ques- 
tion, What do we value? For philosophy wishes to dis- 
cover, if possible, whether value be a mere incident in the 
universe or a part of the very structure of reality. 

The question may be answered in two different ways. On 
the one hand, it may be held that we value only conscious 
experience. The value of a painting consists (according to 
one’s psychological theory) in the pleasure it gives, or in 
the extent to which it realizes one’s desire, or in its relation 
to the fulfillment of obligation, or in its contribution to the 


1T,. H. Green, Dtirr, Bowne, and others, have emphasized this ideal. 


STANDARD OF VALUE 143 


realization of my ideal of beauty in personal life; in any 
event, its value consists in a conscious experience. 

On the other hand, it may be said that everything in the 
universe, conscious or unconscious, real or imaginary, has 
been or might be valued. In ordinary language we speak of 
valuing a Sistine Madonna or a friend; a good play or a 
landscape; mathematics or Alice in Wonderland. 

Little consideration is needed to show that the two points 
of view are less diverse than appears. It is not the Sistine 
Madonna, as an ordered collection of protons and electrons, 
that we value; it is rather its effect on a mind or the atti- 
tude of a mind toward it that constitutes its value. The 
significant fact for us, however, is that for some mind and 
from some point of view, it is conceivable, if not certain, that 
every fact in the universe may be valued. 


§Q. WHAT IS THE STANDARD OF VALUE? 


It is one of the commonest facts of experience that we 
must choose among values; we cannot realize all values at the 
same time. If we choose one value in preference to another, 
what is the ground of our choice? Are there some values 
that are always and everywhere better than others? Is there 
any principle whereby values may be arranged in a scale of 
worth? 

Such questions, whatever their practical and theoretical 
importance, are difficult to answer. It is evident, in the first 
place, that the answer depends largely on our psychological 
account of what valuation is. If values are pleasures, the 
standard of value is the amount of pleasure; but this stand- 
ard is evanescent, because what pleases to-day may disgust 
to-morrow; what charms me may repel you. If values are 
satisfactions of desire, the standard is the strength of the 


144 UNIVERSALS AND VALUES 


desire; but this sounds perplexingly like ‘‘might makes 
right,” and leaves the mind dissatisfied. If the only true 
value be obedience to the obligations of a rational will, the 
range of value seems to have been intolerably narrowed. 
If value be the realization of our ideal of personality, we 
have what is obviously a developing standard. It may be 
that such a standard is the only kind that will suit the 
nature of developing beings like ourselves. 

Of one point regarding the standard of value, we may be 
reasonably certain. Whatever is truly valuable must con- 
form to the criterion of truth, 7. e., it must be coherent within 
itself and in its relations to other truth. This warrants us 
in formulating a working criterion or standard somewhat as 
follows: that value is, in any given situation, the highest 
which contributes most to the coherent functioning and or- 
ganization of experience as a whole. One is never certain 
about the greatest good in any situation until one has taken 
everything into account; and even then one may discover 
that two or more courses of action or appreciation are equally 
valuable. If one arrive at this conclusion, there is no stand- 
ard of value that could guide one’s choice. 


S$ 10. CLASSIFICATION OF VALUES 


It is useful to consider how values may be classified,’ pro- 
vided not too much significance be attached to the classifica- 
tion. 

(1) INTRINSIC AND INSTRUMENTAL. [Intrinsic values 
are those that we prize for their own sake. Instrumental 
values are whatever causes or leads to intrinsic values. 


1 This discussion owes much to Sorley, Moral Values and the Idea of 
God, pp. 36-50. 


CUASSTETICALTLION 145 


Beauty, knowledge, friendship, character, and even play are 
instances of intrinsic values. Money is exclusively instru- 
mental. It is interesting to note that intrinsic values are also 
instrumental; what we prize for its own sake also causes 
further intrinsic value. 

(2) PERMANENT AND TRANSIENT. Some values are by 
their very nature transient; others are such that they may 
be permanent elements in experience. Few would deny that 
good health is a value; yet in the nature of the case it is 
transient; and the instrumental values of wealth too easily 
take wings. Yet there are permanent values; nothing, save 
my own disloyalty, need ever separate me from truth and 
goodness, beauty and religion. 

(3) CATHOLIC AND EXCLUSIVE. Some values are such 
that if one person possesses them, all others are excluded 
from their possession; these values are called exclusive. 
Such are all values that depend on the possession of material 
things. Other values are such that they may be shared by 
all; such, indeed, that the possession of them by one person 
makes it easier for others to possess them. These are called 
catholic (or universal) values. It is significant that the same 
values that we found to be permanent are also catholic. 

(4) HicHER AND Lower. Among the intrinsic values 
there is a distinction generally made between the higher and 
the lower. A little reflection shows that this cannot mean 
that in every situation the “higher” are to be preferred to 
the “lower”; for the development of all sides of experience, 
the maintenance of life as a whole, means that we must often 
choose humble tasks and lowly values if the whole is to grow 
in right proportion. At times good health is more valu- 
able than knowledge, and provender more needed than 
prayer. 


146 UNIVERSALS AND VALUES 


Roughly, however, the intrinsic values may be classified 
as follows:* 
Lower intrinsic values. 
Recreational (play). 


Bodily (health). 
Social (association). 


Higher intrinsic values. 


Intellectual (knowledge, truth). 
Esthetic (beauty). 

Character (goodness). 
Religious (holiness). 


There will be difference of opinion about the order iv 
each group. Probably the point to which chief objection will 
be raised is the placing of “‘social” values in the lower group. 
Is not friendship, association with our kind, worth more, one 
may ask, than mere intellect or mere honesty? ‘The reason 
for placing social values relatively low in the scale is that 
the value of association is dependent on the presence of the 
higher values. It is questionable whether there is any intrin- 
sic value whatever in social relations from which truth, 
beauty, goodness, and religion are lacking. At any rate, 
mere association, mere cooperation or personal loyalty, 
without regard to the value of what is being realized through 
association, has very meager value. 

The ground for the grouping into higher and lower is 
found in the extent of the contribution made by each value 
to the coherent whole of life. Recreation contributes some- 
thing to the whole of life; imparts to it a glow that makes 
the rest of our living saner and happier. But the contri- 


1For an illuminating “table of values’ and exposition see Everett’s 
Moral Values, chapter on “The World of Values,” by which the discus- 
sion in the text is influenced. Our table is confined to intrinsic values ; 
instrumental values are obviously relative to the intrinsic values that they 
subserve. 


INTERPENETRATION 147 


bution made by recreation does not compare in range, in com- 
plexity and in potential future development with the contri- 
butions made by the true or the beautiful or the good. 


§ II. INTERPENETRATION OF THE VALUES 


There is no intrinsic value that stands alone.’ Realization 
of all the other values is dependent on character values; the 
cheat destroys fun or truth, beauty or religion. Attempt, if 
you will, to define any one value as utterly alone and apart 
from all the others. What value can stand without truth? 
What value is completely defined if its esthetic aspects are 
omitted? What is the value of religion when the good, the 
true, and the beautiful have been removed from it? 

The values, then, interpenetrate. No values can be fully 
appreciated without taking all other values,—indeed, the 
whole personal consciousness, into account. Since every per- 
son is a member of society, we must go further and take 
the entire society into account. But since society itself is 
dependent on the world in which it lives, and since value 
experiences arise through interaction between society and 
its environment, we must take all reality into account. In 
other words, our values can only be understood and must al- 
ways be interpreted and criticized in the light of our world- 
view. No one has the right, rationally speaking, to say, 
“This is of value,” unless he has related it to everything 
he knows. Thus the study of value drives us on to meta- 
physics. If we wish to think truly about value, we must 
seek to think truly about reality as a whole. Our human 
values not only interpenetrate each other, but value and all 
reality also mutually interpenetrate. 


1 See Everett, Moral Values, p. 183. The principle of interpenetration 
has been emphasized most frequently by the absolute idealists. 


148 UNIVERSALS AND VALUES 


§ 12. VALUE AND EXISTENCE 


Values are sometimes spoken of as though they were mere 
abstract universals or ideals. We have called beauty, for 
instance, a value; and the word beauty is an abstraction. 
Some speak as though the ideal were what had value. Yet 
critical reflection shows us that we never mean to ascribe 
value to an ideal apart from any realization of it. Ideals 
may have very high instrumental value; if I hitch my wagon 
to a star, I may rise somewhat. But the mere ideal, the star 
to which no wagon is hitched, twinkles too feebly to be of 
any value. Ideals, mere schemes or programs of possible 
value, are of no worth; only the actual realization of value 
in character or knowledge or beauty is of value. 

A relation between value and existence has been recog- 
nized by many thinkers. Hegel has only scorn for those 
who pin their faith to an ideal that is not actual. Meinong 
points out that all value judgments involve at least the 
Annahme (assumption or supposal) of the existence of the 
value in question. “It is only as existing,” says Sorley, “that 
the thing is held to be good.” * 

Whenever, then, we talk about values, we talk about the 
real world. No realm of ideal fancy or abstract validity 
is meant when we speak of the value of beauty and truth; 
we mean that real beauty and known truth ought to exist; 
that they have a rightful and obligatory place in the realm 
of being. Thus, again, the study of value drives us to 
metaphysics. We must ask the question, What is the status 
of values in reality? 

1 Moral Values and the Idea of God, p. 82. 


SUBJECTIVE OR OBJECTIVE? 149 


V13. ARE VALUES SUBJECTIVE OR OBJECTIVE? 


The question about the status of values in reality is often 
put in the form, Are values subjective or objective? This 
question is one of the “persistent problems of philosophy,” 
one that has engaged the greatest intellects from Plato and 
Aristotle to Kant and Hegel, and is still being hotly debated. 
Thinkers who agree on many other points, disagree about 
this fundamental question. Are values simply and solely 
relative to human desires and pleasures, customs and insti- 
tutions; or are they in some way permanent, objective as- 
pects of the universe? 

(1) DEFINITION oF TERMS. The terms objective and 
subjective are unfortunate on account of their ambiguity. 
It would, however, be still more unfortunate to attempt to 
introduce a new terminology. We shall therefore hold to the 
current usage. 

The belief that values are merely subjective may take an 
individualistic or a social form. Individualistic subjectivism 
is the belief that value is wholly relative to the private 
feelings of the individual. For this view, no value can 
claim any meaning beyond the “TI enjoy it” of egoistic hedon- 
ism or the “I desire it’? of egoistic voluntarism. Nothing 
more than the feeling of the moment is recognized as enter- 
ing into the value experience. This view, taken seriously, 
does violence to the possibility of any coherent evaluation; 
for all such evaluation implies that the experiences of the 
moment must be judged by some coherent ideal. 

The belief that values are socially shared, socially evolved, 
and are wholly dependent on changing industrial, political, 
and cultural conditions may be called social subjectivism (or 
social solipsism in the field of values). On this view, values 
have a certain objective status relative to the individual. He 


150 UNIVERSALS AND VALUES 


finds values given to him in his education and the institu- 
tions with which he is identified. But the social subjectivist 
is still a subjectivist. He holds that value is wholly relative 
to human conditions. He finds nothing universal, or per- 
manent, or genuinely objective about values. He acknowl- 
edges no eternal values. For him, values are no product of 
the nature of things; they are the product only of social 
needs and change as social conditions change. 

What is meant by objectivism, the belief in the objectivity 
of values, is more difficult to define. Broadly speaking, 
everything that may be thought about, no matter how sub- 
jective it be, is an object; and the subjectivist (social or in- 
dividual) may therefore lay claim to belief in objectivity. 
Yet the belief in objectivity intends to assert more than the 
subjectivist will grant. The “more” consists of at least two 
assertions: (a) that an objective value is one that all minds 
that think reasonably ought to acknowledge (logical objec- 
tivity); and (b) that it is valid not only for human individ- 
uals and groups, but for the universe, the reality on which 
man depends and in harmony with which he lives (meta- 
physical objectivity). 

For example, the beauty of a sunset is for the individ- 
ualistic subjectivist merely a matter of whether he likes 
it or not; if he likes it, well and good, it is beautiful for 
him; if he doesn’t like it, there’s no arguing about taste, and 
no poet has a right to exclaim, 


“For this, for everything we are out of tune; 
It moves us not.—Great God! I’d rather be 
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn. .. .” 


Much contemporary literature and literary criticism is 
plainly written by men and women whom Wordsworth might 
rank as sub-pagan! 


SUBJECTIVE OR OBJECTIVE? 151 


For the social subjectivist, the beauty of the sunset is a 
social convention; perhaps merely arbitrary (akin to the 
beauty of the dress suit of the male of the species), so that 
Cimmerian darkness might have been voted just as beau- 
tiful as a sunset, if the shamans of B. C. 100,000 had so 
ruled; or perhaps decreed by a majority vote of the individ- 
ual subjectivists, so that the minority is either overruled or 
shamed into acquiescence; or caused by the discovery that 
calling a sunset beautiful makes the group healthy, wealthy, 
and wise. All value thus becomes purely a function of the 
group. 

Now, the objectivist quarrels with every shade of sub- 
jectivism. He admits, of course, that the value experience is, 
in a sense, subjective, both individually and socially; but 
he will not admit that the meaning of value is exhausted 
by the subjective experience. He says that the sunset is 
really beautiful; and that if I do not enjoy it, I ought to 
learn to enjoy it. He holds that if I am true tc the prin- 
ciples of sound thinking, which reveal coherence and har- 
mony as the root principle of mind, I shall find myself 
under obligation to acknowledge true beauty; I fail to 
acknowledge it only when I do not see it clearly or do 
not understand my own mind clearly. He may add that, 
since coherence is the criterion of truth, it follows that 
what coherence commands us to regard as beautiful really 
is beautiful for the universe as well as for the human mind. 
Wordsworth expressed this conception of the objectivity of 
value when, in his ode, “Composed upon an Evening of ex- 
traordinary Splendour and Beauty,” he wrote, 


“From worlds not quickened by the sun, 
A portion of the gift is won; 
An intermingling of Heaven’s pomp is spread 
On ground which British shepherds tread!” 


152 UNIVERSALS AND VALUES 


All who believe that there are eternal values (Miinsterberg), 
whether as impersonal entities (Platonists, Spaulding), or 
significant structures (Adams), or as some quality or at- 
tribute of the universe as a whole (Spinoza, Hegel, Alexander, 
pantheists), or as norms in the mind of God (deists, theists, 
personalists), hold to the metaphysical objectivity of value. 
(2) SUBJECTIVISTIC CRITICISMS OF OBJECTIVISM. The 
first thinker to give serious attention to the metaphysics of 
value was Plato. He was an objectivist. It may be said 
that, on the whole, belief in objectivity of value (although 
not under that name) has been the predominant tradition in 
the history of philosophy. But from time to time, and par- 
ticularly of late, there have been vigorous protests against 
objectivism, and these protests will now be presented. 
Attention is called to the fact that actual valuations are 
different at different times and places. ‘There is hardly a 
crime that has not somewhere been considered a good and 
even a holy act; hardly a noble ideal that has not somewhere 
been despised. The study of anthropology, of the evolu- 
tion of morals, of sociology and social psychology has led 
many to agree with Westermarck’s position that moral value 
is purely a matter of subjective feeling that varies as con- 
ditions vary. The standards of 2000 B. C. and 2000 A. D. 
(whatever the latter may be) cannot both be valid; for all 
we know, both may be false. All standards change, evolu- 
tion goes on, no value is permanent or objective or eternal. 
The objectivist acknowledges the facts of change and 
moral evolution; but he believes that the subjectivist draws 
unwarranted conclusions from them. Of course, the objec- 
tivist would say, our apprehension of value changes, our 
standards evolve; but this does not prove that there is no 
objective value. As I walk toward Boston, the Customs 
House tower looms higher and clearer; do my changing 


SUB Gell Vike O RAO BAC DTV Ee 153 


views of the tower prove that there is no tower? Likewise, 
our conception of true value changes; the view gradually 
(we hope) improves; but it cannot be inferred from the im- 
provement, or from frequent obscurations of vision, that 
there is no true value. 

Further, the objectivist urges, every serious subjectivist 
will concede that at least one value is objective, namely, the 
value of truth. Knowledge has had as many vicissitudes as 
has beauty; the savage and the modern moron are as 
prone to resist truth as they are to resist goodness; nay, 
even the wisest have erred regarding truth. Does this mean 
that there is no truth? We have already (Chapter IIT) 
seen the defects of skepticism. Subjectivism is founded on 
knowledge of facts derived from sciences such as anthro- 
pology, sociology and others; but if all values are subjective, 
these sciences are subjective too, and their results are no 
more to be trusted than are moral standards or standards of 
taste and beauty. 

There is, of course, some truth in the subjectivists’ con- 
tentions. They appeal to undoubted facts. Further, there 
is no question but that many valuations are subjective, just 
as many opinions about evolution or what happened yester- 
day are subjective. But these facts are insufficient to prove 
that all values, or all opinions, are subjective. They prove 
only that it is important and difficult to distinguish between 
the subjective and the objective. Subjectivism represents the 
surrender of thought in the presence of great difficulty; 
objectivism confronts the same difficulty but keeps up the 
fight toward truth about reality. 

Subjectivists urge that the psychological nature of value 
is such as to preclude its objectivity. Value, they say, is 
dependent on desire and consists in the fulfillment of desire. 
Hence, value, for two reasons, cannot be objective: first, it 


154 UNIVERSALS AND VALUES 


has no meaning apart from fulfilled desire, which is a sub- 
jective experience; and secondly, our desires are notoriously 
indifferent to what is objectively true; we desire the unattain- 
able, the unreal, the impossible. 

To this argument, the objectivist may reply, first of 
all, that it rests on a false psychology of value. True value, 
he might say, is not fulfillment of any and every desire, 
but such fulfillment as conforms to norms or ideals implicit 
in the rational structure of mind. If, however, he should 
not care to rest his case here, he might go on as before to 
show internal inconsistency in the position of the subjec- 
tivist. If fulfilled desire cannot interpret objective truth 
about the cosmos, we are again reduced to skepticism; for the 
desire for truth is itself a desire. If fulfilled desire cannot 
express objective truth, then all truth, including truth about 
the subjectivist theory, is impossible. Plato was more 
nearly right than modern subjectivists when he taught that 
desire (which he called Love) “interprets between gods and 
men ...3 he is the mediator who spans the chasm which 
divides them.” * Desire (of the right sort), far from making 
objectivity impossible, is the necessary condition of truth- 
finding. 

Many recent writers, such as Dewey and Robinson in 
America, and Miiller-Freienfels in Germany, think that 
belief in the objectivity of values is only an attempt to sanc- 
tion the standards of dominant social institutions. It is (they 
hold) a device of conservatism to ensure the perpetual rec- 
ognition of what has been believed and practiced, and so 
to prevent progress. Men talk about eternal justice in order 
to support the law courts; about the divine right of kings 
in order to perpetuate monarchy; about God in order to 
guarantee ecclesiastical institutions; about the golden streets 

1 Plato, Symp., 202E, tr. Jowett. 


SUBJECTIVE OR OBJECTIVE? 155 


and pearly gates of heaven in order to express (among other 
things) current economic evaluations of gold and pearls. 
Many high-minded social reformers, repelled by debased 
uses to which metaphysics has been put, revolt against all 
metaphysics and welcome a view that leaves them free to 
change the earth for the better without stumbling against 
the unchangeabilities of a heavenly order. 

The trouble with this social explanation of values is that 
it is not thorough-going enough. If eternal justice is not 
objective because it supports the law-courts; and God is 
not objective because he supports the church, we shall then 
have to go further and concede that science is not objective 
because it supports the universities, the learned societies, 
and the book publishers. The subjectivist case derives its 
apparent force from appeal to selected instances. Doubtless 
subjectivism is right in holding that some pretended objec- 
tive values are socially useful fictions that are not genuinely 
objective; but this argument cannot be made the basis for 
the denial of all objectivity without involving all thought, 
all truth, in universal ruin. 

An objection of a different type appears frequently in 
recent literature. If value be objective, it is said, then it is 
already real; the universe is already perfect. What, then, 
is the incentive to progress? Why seek to perfect perfection, 
to paint the lily? Thus, these critics say, the objectivity of 
value arrives at a self-contradiction: it is based (in part) 
on moral experience, yet its metaphysics makes an essential 
aspect of moral experience meaningless. 

This is probably the most serious objection that has been 
raised. It is valid against certain objectivistic theories. It 
refutes successfully any view which holds that existing real- 
ity is forever statically perfect. But while certain formula- 
tions of absolute idealism have apparently maintained this 


156 UNIVERSALS AND VALUES 


position, it is by no means evident that all belief in the 
objectivity of value implies that the universe is already per- 
fect. Perhaps the very objectivity of value may consist 
(in part) in the fact that the universe is indefinitely perfect- 
ible; perhaps it is true that there are valid norms that ought 
to be attained by finite beings, yet are unattainable in finite 
time. If this be the case, and the perfectibility of the 
universe is something inexhaustible, then the objectivity of 
value is the greatest possible stimulus to progress. The pos- 
sibility of this solution does not prove its truth; but it does 
destroy the cogency of the subjectivist attack at this point. 

The values of human experience, some subjectivists say, 
cannot be objective and eternal because ‘“‘man’s place in the 
cosmos” is temporary and precarious. He isa recent product 
of evolution, destined to endure for a few seconds of cosmic 
time on a tiny speck in the universe called the earth, and 
then to vanish, leaving no trace of his civilization, his 
victories and defeats, save the continued motion, in other 
relations, of the electrons and protons that constituted the 
bodies of the human race. 

This consideration makes a powerful appeal to the imag- 
ination and emotions; but its logical force is another mat- 
ter. True it probably is as an account of man’s physical 
being; but is it true as a final interpretation of man’s place in 
the cosmos as a whole? If materialism be true, most human 
values are not objective; yet even materialism is based on 
the assumption that the reason of man, tiny and evanescent 
as he is, can correctly describe the truth about the uni- 
verse. The present Jntroduction elsewhere sets forth rea- 
sons for believing that materialism is not true, and that 
man’s physical relations do not completely describe him or 
the universe in which he lives. 

Finally, subjectivists hold that values are not objective 


SUBJECTIVE OR OBJECTIVE? 157 


because sense experience reveals no objective value. For 
the objectivist’s reply to this criticism the reader is referred 
to the discussion of sensation as criterion of truth in Chapter 
II. 

(3) ARGUMENTS FOR OBJECTIVISM. The foregoing dis- 
cussion has already implicitly or explicitly treated much of 
what may be said for or against the truth of the belief 
in the objectivity of values. There are, however, certain ad- 
ditional positive considerations that should be mentioned; 
and certain points should be made clearer. 

First, we should note the significant fact that value judg- 
ments claim objectivity as truly as do our sense perceptions. 
When I perceive a cat, my perception does not mean merely 
that a psychological process is going on in my mind; it means 
that I am seeing or hearing a real cat,—or at least believe 
that a real cat is the object of my perception. Likewise, when 
I judge that it is wrong to steal or that the Matterhorn is 
sublime, I do not mean that I have certain feelings or 
satisfied desires; I am referring to what I believe is a fact, 
beyond my psychological apprehension of it. My sense- 
perceptions may be erroneous, and are subject to the criti- 
cisms that thought passes on all experience; illusions and 
hallucinations exist and may be corrected by reasonable 
reflection. Likewise our judgments or perceptions of value 
may be erroneous; they, ‘too, need criticism and organiza- 
tion. Particular judgments of truth-value must be corrected | 
by the standards of logic; of beauty-value, by the stand- 
ards of esthetics; of goodness-value, by the standards of 
ethics; and of religion-value by the standards of philosophy 
of religion. The presence of erroneous value judgments in 
experience (which is a common and obvious fact) no more 
destroys the objectivity of value than the presence of illu- 
sions destroys the objectivity of the world of nature. 


158 UNIVERSALS AND VALUES 


The subjectivist cannot deny this fact of objective ref- 
erence in the value judgment; he can only defend his posi- 
tion by showing, if possible, that the whole supposed system 
of objective values is either meaningless or inconsistent with- 
in itself or with certain aspects of experience or established 
truth. If he cannot do this, he has failed to refute value 
objectivism. 

If truth be a value, the objectivist goes on to say, at least 
one value is objective, in both the logical and the meta- 
physical senses. Truth isthe model of what we mean by 
objectivity; and is also (one would suppose) one of the 
most highly prized of values, if not the highest of all. 

This argument is met by the subjectivist in subtle fash- 
ion. He contends that truth as such is not a value; truth is 
simply what is valid about the state of affairs in the uni- 
verse. If there were no minds, it would be true that there 
were no minds; but there would be no value in this truth 
nor in any other under those conditions; for value consists 
in some relation to the experience of conscious beings. 
Truth, then, says the subjectivist, is in itself of no value; 
only known truth, or the appreciation of truth, is valuable. 

This objection is, however, more subtle than cogent; for 
the objectivist might be perfectly willing to grant that truth 
that is known to no mind is of no value. Known truth, at 
least, is valuable; and if an idealistic or personalistic meta- 
physics could be established all truth would be known 
truth. The Supreme Mind would know all truth, and in this 
knowledge of truth by God would reside the objectivity of 
the value of truth. 

There remains an important defense of objectivism in 
the nature of the criterion of truth. Our ground for assert- 
ing the objectivity of the world of nature (in whatever sense 
it may be objective) is solely the fact that the hypothesis of 


SUBJECTIVE OR OBJECTIVE? | 159 


a real world, valid knowledge of which is common to all 
thinking minds, is the most coherent way of interpreting 
our sense experiences of nature and of communication with 
other persons. Likewise,’ our ground for asserting the ob- 
jectivity of the realm of value in reality is the fact that 
our value judgments can be organized into a system that is 
most coherent when we interpret value as an objective claim 
that reality makes, rather than as our merely subjective 
demand for pleasure or satisfaction. 

This position grants to the subjectivist that our reasons 
for asserting a real world have their roots in our own being; 
but insists that neither our perceptions of physical nature 
nor our perceptions of value are merely subjective. Both 
point to a reality beyond us; both reveal objective truth. 

In reply to the objectivist argument at this point, the 
subjectivist may say that there is a very great difference 
in the kinds of coherence attainable in our knowledge of 
nature and in our knowledge of values. The former is 
mathematically exact, and is constantly becoming fuller and 
more precise; predictions made by physicists and astron- 
omers are fulfilled. The latter is neither mathematical nor 
precise; there is difference of opinion not alone about the 
canons of esthetics, and the values of religion, but even 
about the principles of moral value. It cannot be said that 
the dwelling-place of values is so coherent and ordered a 
mansion as is the home of Mother Nature. 

This objection is serious, but not fatal. It depends in part 
on taking mathematical law and predictability as the ideal 
model of coherence. There is, of course, something not 
merely neat and satisfactory, but also intellectually com- 
pelling about a mathematical formula and its applications 


1 The logical identity of the criterion in the two fields is emphasized 
by Sorley. 


160 UNIVERSALS AND VALUES 


to nature; but philosophy is an interpretation of experience 
as a whole, not merely of the neatly mathematical aspects of 
it. Is it not true that there are aspects of experience that 
mathematics and physics have never undertaken to deal 
with? The statement that the most important task of reli- 
gion is ‘‘to develop the consciences, the ideals, and the 
aspirations of mankind,” and that religion and science are 
not “irreconcilable and antagonistic domains of thought,” 
but that each supplements the other and each is necessary 
to the human race is nota prejudiced utterance of some 
propagandist, but the mature judgment of an important group 
of the leaders of American science and religion.t The au- 
thority of great names is no argument in philosophy; but it 
is not unimportant that men who are most familiar with the 
methods of the exact sciences are able to report that they rec- 
ognize the realm of values. Our knowledge of values is not, 
and probably never will be, mathematical. Our experience of 
values is none the less real and none the less important. 
The task of interpreting values is difficult; but shall that 
difficulty lead us to accept subjectivism? 

In short, which is more coherent: to assert that there are 
objective standards, although our knowledge of them is 
only approximate; or to assert that really there are no 
objective standards, that all value is relative to desire, and 
that nothing is really better than anything else? Does not 
reason collapse if objective norms be not acknowledged? 
The thinker is called on to answer no more important ques- 
tion. 


1See the Boston Transcript, May 26, 1923, and other newspapers of 
that date, for a full account. Among the men of science who signed the 
statements are Professors Millikan (physicist), Walcott (geologist), 
Osborne (paleontologist), Conklin (zodlogist), Angell (psychologist and 
president of Yale), Coulter (botanist), and many others; some of the 
religious leaders are Bishops Lawrence, Manning, and McConnell; Dr. 
Van Dyke, and President King. 


SUBJECTIVE OR OBJECTIVE? 161 


A further consideration may be mentioned,—namely, that 
the existence of values in human life is hard to explain if 
the universe itself be entirely indifferent to value. In a 
_ world so utterly valueless as that pictured by Mr. Bertrand 
Russell in his famous essay, “A Free Man’s Worship,” it is 
hard to explain the rise of Mr. Russell’s own heroic ideal- 
ism; it is an inexplicable miracle, a fact with no significant 
relations to its causes or its effects,—in short an incoherent 
item of worth in a worthless world." 

This argument may not be conclusive taken by itself. 
An effect need not resemble a cause; I may drink whisky 
and feel Dutch courage, the courage bearing no likeness to 
the whisky. So too, unfeeling nature may produce the 
sensitive ideals of the social reformer. It remains true, 
however, in spite of the analogy of whisky, that there is 
something miraculous and incoherent about the rise of value 
in a valueless universe; and if there is a logical way of 
describing reality that can include the facts of nature and 
the facts of value in a more coherent world-view than Mr. 
Russell’s, logic would compel us to say that the more coherent 
view is more probably true. 

The subjectivist may return to the attack by calling atten- 
tion to the age-old problem of evil. He might ask whether 
the objectivist’s contention does not prove too much. If the 
presence of value is hard to explain in a valueless universe, 
he might urge, it is much harder to explain the presence 
of evil in a good universe. 

The difficulty of “the problem of evil” is notorious.” It 
must be admitted that the presence of both good and evil 
in the same universe is not easy to explain on any theory. 
Whether fundamental reality be good or evil or neutral or 


1 See Bee Leighton, Man and the Cosmos, p. 378. 
2See Chapter IX, §3, (3) for a fuller treatment of the problem. 


162 UNIVERSALS AND VALUES 


mixed, this is a perplexing world and difficulties attend 
every proffered solution. The objectivist may, however, 
maintain that fewer and less serious difficulties attend his 
solution than any other, and for the following reasons. Evil 
is essentially incoherent, both within itself, and with funda- 
mental aspects of truth; it is contradictory and negative, not 
positive and coherent. Hence the presence of evil in the 
universe does not prove the objectivity of evil. The argu- 
ment for a devil does not stand on the same plane intel- 
lectually with the argument for a God. It is, then, more 
coherent to judge that metaphysical reality is fundamentally 
good, than to judge it evil, or partly good and partly evil, 
We have already seen that it is very difficult to regard it as 
neutral or valueless. Whatever, then, be its function, evil 
cannot be the fundamental meaning of the universe. It is 
at least possible that the universe may be better with evil 
in it than it would have been without; yet, if this be true, 
there is a fundamental tragedy in value and goodness them- 
selves that no optimism should conceal from our eyes. The 
place of the death of Jesus in Christian theology testifies 
that the religious consciousness is not unaware of tragedy in 
God himself. 


§ 14. VALUE AND PERSONALISM 


A survey of the results of our reflection about values leaves 
us apparently face to face with what philosophy calls an 
antinomy,—that is, two mutually contradictory proposi- 
tions, each of which can be proved true. These two proposi- 
tions are called thesis and antithesis. In the theory of value 
the thesis runs: values are relative to consciousness, are what 
consciousness appreciates (subjective). The antithesis is: 


PERSONALISM 163 


values are objective, are such that they really ought to be 
appreciated whether we actually appreciate them or not. 

About every apparent antinomy the first question to ask is 
whether the thesis and antithesis are contradictory. If we 
reéxamine the two propositions in question, it appears that 
the antithesis is more obscure and uncertain than the thesis. 
It is reasonably certain that valuing is a conscious experi- 
ence; value is dependent on personality. Now, if the an- 
tithesis means to assert that value is wholly independent of 
personality, it contradicts the thesis. But a value wholly 
independent of personality is just as inconceivable as a sen- 
sation of red wholly independent of consciousness. If it 
means that value is partly independent of personality, the 
thesis would admit this for instrumental value, but not for 
intrinsic; and our inquiry relates to intrinsic values. If the 
thesis be true, not even a part of intrinsic value can be 
independent of personality. Yet the antithesis asserts, and 
has presented many arguments to prove, that value is objec- 
tive; that I face a world in which value is a reality beyond 
myself. What we have called social subjectivism holds that 
the realization of value experiences by social groups conform- 
ing to social standards provides the needed objectivity. But 
we have already shown that coherent thought means more 
than this; it means that true values are derived not merely 
from the social situations in which they come to expression, 
but from the nature and structure of reality. If this be 
sound reasoning, it follows that there is only one way to 
reconcile the true thesis with the truth in the antithesis, 
namely, to suppose that the true values are experiences of a 
mind beyond all human individuals and societies. Since 
true values are a coherent system, it is more reasonable to 
suppose that this mind is one and not many. 


164 UNIVERSALS AND VALUES 


Here again we see that thought drives us in the direction 
of the hypothesis of a supreme mind or person as the ultimate 
reality of the universe and the home of values. The hy- 
pothesis, known as personalistic idealism or personalism, is 
true if it be, as it appears to be, the only thoroughly 
coherent solution of the antinomy. 

There is a certain native (or acquired) rebellion of the 
human mind against taking the step from a state of igno- 
rance or contradiction to a state of coherent thought, espe- 
cially under certain conditions. When the step is not one 
compelled by deductive or analytic method, but is an advance 
in synoptic comprehension, not based on specific sense expe- 
riences, but on our interpretation of the whole of experi- 
ence, the cautious thinker often declines to accept the most 
reasonable hypothesis as true. Particularly do some minds, 
fearful of being influenced by theological prejudices, hesi- 
tate, as though it were in some strange way more noble and 
loyal to truth to be led by anti-theological fear than by 
theological love. They may argue that perhaps the hy- 
pothesis of a Supreme Person is the best we can think of at 
the moment, or the best the race has developed; but that 
the truth may lie as far beyond personality as personality is 
beyond electrons. 

The personalist has a reply to such objectors. He insists 
as strongly as his critics that all human thinking is fallible; 
only the Infinite is infinite, only the Absolute is absolute. 
We may be wrong, even when we are very certain we are 
right, but such reflections are out of place in philosophy 
except in so far as we can show reasons for doubting the 
truth of our beliefs. Philosophy aims to make experience 
intelligible; to reject an intelligible and coherent hypothesis 
merely because something else, I know not what, may be the 
explanation is irrational. Thought triumphs in science and 


PERSONALISM 165 


in philosophy, in theoretical and practical matters, only as 
it keeps advancing in the direction of the most reasonable 
view. 

Things, we have been led to suggest, are activities of a 
supreme mind; universals are the thought-stuff of a supreme 
mind; values, the normative appreciations of a supreme 
mind that ought to be known and appreciated by human 
minds. All roads lead to mind, but what (we must ask) is 
mind? The following chapter will investigate the nature of 
consciousness, mind, or personality. 


CHAPTER VI 


WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS? 


§ I. INTRODUCTORY 


“The knowledge of the soul,” says Aristotle, “appears to 
be very useful for all truth”; more useful, Aristotle might 
say to Tennyson, than any possible knowledge of the “flower 
in the crannied wall.” The human soul is the seat of per- 
ception and knowledge; could we but know what it is, its 
powers and functions, its origin and limitations, our knowl- 
edge of “all truth” would be far advanced. The theory of 
mind (psychology in the broadest sense) is the most funda 
mental part of philosophy. On this Plato and Aristotle, 
Berkeley and Leibniz, Kant and Hegel, would agree; modern 
idealists and realists find here a proposition acceptable to 
both schools.” 

In principle, then, a large majority of philosophers would 
agree that the problem of soul or mind is fundamental. 
They would, however, soon enough find a bone of contention. 
What shall we call this very important fact that we are 
about to investigate? Not soul, most would agree; for psy- 
chology has long been without a soul; some would object 
to mind, others to consciousness.® It is often facetiously said 

1 De Anima, A, I. I. 


2 Professor Perry, for the realists, speaks of the “fundamental im-e 
portance of the problem of mind.” Present Philosophical Tendencies, 
D.4272. 

3 Some believers in consciousness, like James Ward, object to the term 
(see Psychological Principles, p. 47), as well as doubters thereof, like 
J. B. Watson (Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist, p. 
viii). 

166 


INTRODUCTORY 167 


that psychology, having lost its soul and its mind, is now 
about to lose consciousness. It would seem to be a desperate 
situation if all agree that something is very important, but 
no one is willing to name the something. It may be that 
psychologists are suffering from over-sensitiveness about 
terms. The reason for this sensitiveness is the desire to 
avoid committal in advance to a special theory of what the 
mind is. Soul is a question-begging epithet, as is person, or 
self. 

It would appear that the word consciousness is the least 
objectionable term to indicate what we are going to study. 
Every one knows, by immediate awareness, what it is to be 
conscious and gradually to lose consciousness on falling 
asleep. We all experience thoughts, feelings, perceptions, 
memories, imaginations, choices and the like; we know what 
it is to give conscious attention, and we know how the field 
of consciousness includes both the focus or “bright spot” of 
the center of attention, and the more or less vague “‘fringe”’ 
surrounding it; we perceive that we assign physical things 
to a certain location in space, whereas to consciousness we 
assign neither volume nor location. Consciousness is present 
to us as a flowing stream in which are reflected the varied 
colors of the neighboring world. We may thus designate 
what we mean by consciousness; we may name its parts; 
_ we may contrast it with the unconscious; but we are unable 
to give a formal definition of it. This situation need not 
deter us in view of the fact that only conscious beings read 
books or study philosophy. 

If the term consciousness be objected to by psychological 
purists, it may be said that no better term has yet been 
proposed. James Ward, A. E. Taylor and others would 
abandon consciousness for attention; but attention appears 
to designate only one aspect (if an essential one) of con- 


168 WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS? 


sciousness and is therefore a one-sided approach. J. B. 
Watson and his school wish to give up consciousness for 
behavior. Even if behaviorism should turn out to be true, 
this is an unfortunate starting-point for the study of the 
mind; it creates the impression that the behaviorist desires to 
distract attention from the immediate facts of consciousness 
to the facts of behavior. If psychology is the study of be- 
havior to the exclusion of consciousness, it is a branch 
of the study of physical things. On the other hand, those 
who regard psychology as the study of consciousness do not 
dream of excluding a study of the relations of mind to 
body and environment. 

With clear consciences, then, we may proceed to seek an 
answer to the question, “What is consciousness?” 


§ 2. HOW SHOULD CONSCIOUSNESS BE STUDIED? 


The question of method of investigation is an important 
preliminary. A wrong or inadequate method may easily 
preclude the attainment of truth. To use a crude illustration, 
he who undertakes to ride in an automobile to the North 
Pole, under present conditions, is doomed to failure, even 
though he have the best of automobiles and of intentions. In 
order to avoid failure in the study of consciousness every 
method that has any promise whatever should be attempted. 

(1) MetHops In Use. The methods that have been 
tried and found to yield results are the following: 

(a) Introspection. Introspection means turning attention 
to one’s own consciousness and observing it.’ Ordinarily we 
are not introspecting; we are percelving the world about us. 
But it is quite possible to direct attention to consciousness 


1QOn the nature of introspection see M. W. Calkins, “Self in Scientific 
Psychology,” Am. Jour. Psych., 26 (1915), 522 ff. 


METHODS 169 


itself and thus to become conscious of consciousness. Intro- 
spection occurs unscientifically whenever we think about our 
own inner life. It occurs scientifically when trained ob- 
servers inspect their consciousness under standardized condi- 
tions. ‘The much-discussed method of psychoanalysis is 
an attempt on the part of the psychologist so to direct the 
introspection of the patient as to lead him to become aware 
of conscious complexes that have been “suppressed.” 

(b) Objective Observation of Behavior. The method of 
introspection suffers from the defect of giving information 
about the consciousness of one person only, namely, the in- 
trospector himself. It would seem that data derived from 
so restricted a field are too fragile a basis on which to 
rear a psychology and philosophy of consciousness. Hence, 
psychology has always had recourse to the method of the 
objective observation of behavior. We observe that our 
own consciousness is followed or preceded by certain kinds 
of behavior; and we believe that similar behavior on the 
part of others is accompanied by similar consciousness.’ Ii, 
then, we are to know anything about the consciousness of 
others, we must observe their behavior,—watch their reac- 
tions to stimuli, listen to their words, note their gestures and 
facial expressions. Psychophysics, the study of the rela- 
tion between mathematically measured alterations of stimulus 
and the conscious reaction of the subject of the experiment, 
belongs here. Objective observation is sometimes called 
methodological behaviorism. 

(c) The Method of Physiological Psychology. Light is 
shed on consciousness by a study of the relations of con- 
scious processes to physiological processes, especially of the 
relations of consciousness to nervous system. Use of the 


1 The validity of the above statement as the ground of our knowledge of 
other minds has been challenged by some. 


170 WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS? 


method of physiological psychology presupposes physiolog- 
ical knowledge, and no small harm has been done by attempts 
of psychologists to pronounce on physiological, neurological, 
and anatomical matters without adequate knowledge of bio- 
logical science. 

(d) Analytic (or Structural) Method. All of the data 
gathered by the foregoing methods may be studied either 
analytically or functionally. If studied analytically they 
may be analyzed into their constituent parts or elements; 
that is, their structure is investigated. The results of intro- 
spection, for example, may be analyzed and found to consist 
of sensational, relational, and other elements. When applied 
to physiological psychology, this method would emphasize 
such facts as the localization of functions in the brain. 

(e) Functional Method. ‘The functional method studies 
consciousness as a process in the light of what it does and 
is a necessary supplement to the analytic method. It inves- 
tigates the work that consciousness does both in adapting the 
human being to his environment and also in organizing its 
own inner life of ends and ideals. It is regrettable that 
some exponents of functional method have clung one-sidedly 
either to environment or to inner adaptations, failing to real- 
ize that a complete study must take all the facts of con- 
sciousness into account. 

Other: methods have been suggested, but they would ap- 
pear to be included under the above. Psychoanalysis, as 
we have shown, is a branch of introspection; psychophysics, 
of objective observation; and experimental method is simply 
the carrying out of all the others under controlled condi- 
tions. 

(2) Wuy tHE METHOD oF INTROSPECTION IS FUNDA- 
MENTAL. There is dispute among psychologists about the 
relative value of the different methods. Without going into 


METHODS 171 


all the pros and cons of the discussion, let us consider the 
arguments for regarding introspection as fundamental. In 
the course of the chapter, the case for other methods will 
be discussed. 

First of all, it appears self-evident that, if we grant that 
conscious processes are experienced and are different from 
physical things, we must also grant that no conscious process 
has ever been directly experienced by any one save the 
person that has it. All direct knowledge of conscious process 
(if there is any) must be introspective. 

Further, the results of all the other methods must be inter- 
preted in the light of introspection. If physiological psy- 
chology or observation of behavior ignore introspective re- 
sults, they leave facts out of account and would then give us 
information about certain organic physical things, but not 
about consciousness. Only when the facts of introspection 
are also considered are the observed physiological data sig- 
nificant for psychology. 

While it is true that introspection has the disadvantage of 
giving us data about one person only, it has the advantage 
of being more certain than the results of objective observa- 
tion. It is true that introspective knowledge, like observa- 
tion of behavior, is epistemologically dualistic and so is 
liable to error. If our study of epistemology, however, was 
sound, introspection has an advantage over knowledge of 
physical things; for physical things are always other than 
Our consciousness, whereas every moment of consciousness 
has been immediate experience. Introspection may always 
be retrospection; but what we thus know mediately has 
once been immediate experience. 

Some object to introspection on the ground that it ignores 
the actual dependence of consciousness on the human organ- 
ism. The introspectionist may well reply to this objection 


172 WHATITIS “CONSCIGUSNES S? 


that, while the relation of consciousness to body is intimate, 
progress in thought depends on the isolation of problems, as 
well as on the perception of connections among problems. 
If there be such a fact as consciousness, it deserves study 
on its own account; before we inquire into the relations 
of mind and body, for example, we need light on what mind 
is. The science of chemistry can exist as science only in the 
minds of students of chemistry; those minds are, it is true, 
to a great extent dependent on bodies, but the fact of that 
dependence is ignored in chemistry. At the outset, at least, 
psychology also is amply justified in studying its data, the 
facts of conscious process, to see what can be made out of, 
them. It may be that consciousness cannot be understood 
without regard to the organic bases of experience; yet it 
remains true that introspection is the fundamental method of 
psychology. 


Se ADVANTAGES OF AN HISTORICAL APPROACH 
TO THE PROBLEM 


In view of the advances that psychology has made in 
recent times, it might appear natural to begin the study of 
consciousness by a direct analysis of consciousness in the 
light of modern psychology and with the aid of the methods 
that have been described. But our interest in the problem is 
not merely in the empirical account of the facts of con- 
sciousness, important and necessary as that is, but rather 
in the philosophical interpretation of those facts. It cannot. 
be said that philosophical psychology has attained such a 
state of insight that we have reached a consensus of opinion 
among scholars about the nature of consciousness. Men 
in their zeal for this or that opinion often write as though 
every standpoint save their own were superseded. It is 


SOUL (PRIMITIVE) 173 


worth while not to confuse an enthusiastic form of words 
with solid argument. 

If, then, we were to start with the present state of psycho- 
logical opinion, we should find ourselves confronting a num- 
ber of different standpoints, which have their roots in the 
past. Hence, it is more reasonable to sketch, if only hastily, 
the history of these different points of view in order to be- 
come aware of the considerations that have led to the differ- 
ences. 


§4. PRIMITIVE BELIEF IN THE SOUL 


Primitive man had no science of psychology or of biology; 
no clearly defined concepts of matter or of mind; no idea of 
natural law. Science and philosophy were equally unknown 
to him. Yet he lived and felt and thought and began to 
shape the words and the problems that later generations were 
to criticize. Observation of the facts of life and death, of 
sleep and unconsciousness, led him to the theory that there 
was something in him that caused him to move and speak and 
live. This something was the soul. 

He had various ideas about what this soul was.* It was 
some sort of power, perhaps akin to ‘breath (hence called 
“spirit,” cf. Gn. 27 and the Greek pueuma), or to wind, or 
to the life-principle (hence the significance of blood in early 
religions), or whatever seems like the living, subtle power 
of mindin man. This conception of soul was very important 
for primitive man. All of nature his animistic theory be- 
lieved to be inhabited by souls; and invisible spirits of good 
and evil were thought to surround and influence his daily 


1See the articles on Soul in Hastings, Encyclopedia of Religion and 
Ethics, Mathews and Smith, Dictionary of Religion and Ethics, and 
Webster’s New International Dictionary. 


174 WHAT I8 CONSCIOUSNESS? 


life. Dreams and abnormal psychological states induced the 
belief that the soul was separable from the body and could 
travel afar. Primitive man did not, however, conceive the 
soul as immaterial; for him it was a refined and subtle 
form of matter. 


SWAs MORE DEVELOPED THEORIES OF THE SOUL 


From the well-nigh universal primitive soul-idea, the more 
advanced philosophies and religions began to develop more 
reflective theories of the soul. They have played an im- 
portant part in the history of thought. 

Plato was the first to work out the sharp distinction be- 
tween soul and body. ‘The soul is, according to Plato, in- 
visible, made up of will and thought, joy and grief, and the 
like, more noble than the body, living before the body lives 
and after the body dies. This Platonic conception of the 
soul as immaterial and immortal was taken up by St. Augus- 
tine and medieval philosophy and was made the starting- 
point of modern philosophy in Descartes. 

Meanwhile, however, questions arose. As the conceptions 
of body and soul and scientific method were more and more 
clearly defined, one difficulty in particular pressed on thought. 
Scientific method was coming to be aware of what Leibniz 
later called the lex continui, the law of continuity. This law 
laid down the principle that everything in nature is con- 
tinuous, that there are no leaps and no breaks. This prin- 
ciple, more or less consciously realized long before the time 
of Leibniz, led to a difficulty about the soul. Body we nat- 
urally think of as continuous; but how about soul? If the 
soul be immaterial, its continuity is nothing physical; but 
if it be throughout of the nature of consciousness, where is 
its continuity? Our conscious life is notoriously fragmen- 


SOUL (DEVELOPED) 175 


tary. It lasts but a few hours at a time. It is interrupted 
by sleep or accident and finally by death. 

This difficulty led many philosophers to the hypothesis 
that soul, or spiritual substance, must be something con- 
tinuous that exists whether we are conscious or not.’ For 
such thinkers the soul was that which had consciousness 
and possessed certain “faculties,” such as intellect and will 
(hence the so-called ‘faculty psychology”). This hypoth- 
esis saved the soul and the law of continuity, it is true, 
but at considerable expense to other intellectual demands, 
particularly to the demand for clear definition. What is the 
soul of which so much is said? It is “that which” has con- 
sciousness, ‘“‘that which” is continuously existing even when 
we are unconscious, “that which’ has faculties. It is not 
material; neither is it wholly of the nature of consciousness. 
It is a very abstract sort of essence; indeed, one can hardly 
attach any positive meaning whatever to the word soul 
when used in this sense. Some of the most ardent advocates 
of the reality of conscious personality have been most 
destructive in their analysis of this sort of “soul.” In his 
Commonplace Book, Berkeley says,’ “Locke seems to be 
mistaken when he says thought is not essential to the mind. 
Certainly the mind always and constantly thinks: and we 
know this too. In sleep and trances the mind exists not— 
there is no time, no succession of ideas. To say the mind 
exists without thinking is a contradiction, nonsense, noth- 
ing.” Lotze is even more explicit; he says, “And if the soul 
in a perfectly dreamless sleep thinks, feels, and wills noth- 
ing, 7s the soul then at all, and what is it? . . . Why have 
we not had the courage to say that, as often as this happens, 


1See M. W. Calkins, “The Case of Self against Soul,” Psych. Rev., 24 
(1917), 278-300. Locke and Kant held the view of the soul described in 
the text. 

2 Works, 2nd ed., Vol. I, p. 34. 


176 WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS? 


the soul is not.””"* John Laird, one of the most thorough of 
recent students of our problem, quotes Berkeley and Lotze 
with approval and says,’ “The unity is compatible with the 
existence of temporal gaps, and these may be irrelevant. 
Why complicate the discussion by seeking a permanent in 
any further sense?” 

At least one distinguished contemporary psychologist, Pro- 
fessor William McDougall, still adheres to the conception 
of soul. He appeals to a something other than conscious 
experience on the ground that soul is needed to solve certain 
physiological problems, and that the identification of soul 
with consciousness fails in this function.* Yet he also rejects 
the traditional idea of the soul as a substratum underlying 
and distinct from consciousness. His view regards the soul 
as “a sum of enduring capacities” for consciousness.* ‘This 
view, however, is difficult. It is hard to conceive of a 
“capacity” which, when not yet realized, is the property of 
no unconscious substratum nor yet of consciousness, but is a 
mere capacity. The fact which this theory strives to express 
is evident enough; but it may be doubted whether the theory 
is intelligible or performs the true theoretical function of 
explaining the facts. 

Views more or less akin to McDougall’s appear in the 
writings of certain biologists (vitalists), but in spite of these 
it may be said that modern philosophy and psychology have 
almost unanimously rejected the older theory of the soul. 
It is, however, singularly persistent in popular thought. The 
reason for its persistence is probably twofold. It appears to 
the popular mind that the fate of values in the universe is 
inseparable from the reality of the soul; hence, it reasons, the 


1 Metaphysics, Eng. tr., II, p. 317. 
2 Problems of the Self, p. 271. 

8 Body and Mind, p. 359. 

4Jb., p. 365. 


SOUL (DEVELOPED) 177 


soul must have a solid, thing-like existence. Further, the 
popular mind thinks naturally in pictures; the soul may be 
pictured as the abiding bill-board on which the changing 
bills of consciousness are posted, as the abiding pincushion 
into which pins of feeling and thought are successively stuck, 
or as the abiding banks between which the changing stream 
of awareness may flow. 

The force of this popular reasoning is, however, very 
slight. If the fate of values depends on an unintelligible 
conception of soul, we may as well admit that the doom of 
values is sealed and go about our business as best we may. 
It may well be, however, that some other theory of conscious- 
ness will be able to give as good an account of values as 
the “soul” theory,—or even better. The picturable charac- 
ter of soul is of course thoroughly illusory. Only material 
things can be pictured, and scarcely they, if we accept the 
electrical theory of matter. Any attempt to picture soul must 
fail to do justice by what is immaterial. As a matter of 
fact, the chief value of the traditional theory of the soul 
is that it is a short cut to a desired conclusion; it saves or 
rather prevents serious thinking about the problem of con- 
sciousness and presents a meaningless entity that is neither 
consciousness nor matter nor universal as though it solved 
the problem. 

The history of the soul-idea in occidental thought has an 
interesting parallel in the religious philosophy of India. The 
varieties of opinion in Indian thought are fully as numerous 
as those in occidental philosophy, and the following state- 
ment is therefore a highly condensed simplification of the 
facts. Among the Hindus there prevailed a view of the 
nature of the soul not unlike the scholastic theory that we 
have been discussing. For this view the soul (or atman) 
was an entity distinct both from body and from conscious- 


178 WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS? 


ness, indestructible and eternal.t Metaphysically all aiman 
came to be regarded as one, and as identical with the supreme 
Atman which is the one and only reality in the universe. 
Buddhism, however, subjected this transcendent soul to a 
searching psychological critique. ‘There is no separate ego- 
soul outside or behind the thought of man.” Nothing, 
Buddhism argued, constitutes my personal identity save my 
thought and character; the assertion of aiman is theoretically 
meaningless and practically egoistic.2 Thus did oriental 
thought in its way work out a criticism of the soul. 


§6. ASSOCIATIONISTIC THEORIES OF CON- 
SCIOUSNESS (STRUCTURAL OR 
ANALYTIC) 


When thought becomes convinced that a transcendent soul 
is not truth, but an imaginative picture, it has not solved 
the problem of consciousness. It has only pronounced a veto 
against unintelligible speculation and set psychology at work 
again on the study of consciousness. 

Psychology, chastened and rendered cautious by its un- 
pleasant affair with the soul, thinks that it has learned a 
lesson and seeks to profit by experience. The result of this 
stage of thought is what is known as associationism, or the 
association psychology. If the facts of experience are to be 
understood, they must be analyzed. The associationist be- 
gins (and ends) with the analytic method; his procedure is 
also described as structural, since he aims to discover the 
structure of experience. 

David Hume is the greatest and most typical association- 


1 Moore, History of Religions, Vol. I, p. 273. Art. “Soul (Hindu),” in 
Hastings, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics. 
2 Carus, The Gospel of Buddha, pp. 24, 136 f. 


ASSOCIATIONISM 179 


ist. His view of consciousness we have already examined as 
an illustration of the analytic method. At present a very 
brief summary will suffice. Hume holds that the more com- 
plex states of consciousness, when analyzed, are found to 
consist of what he calls impressions and ideas and their 
relations. By impressions he means what we commonly mean 
by sensations; by ideas, pale copies of impressions in memory 
or imagination. Relations or associations among impressions 
and ideas explain our whole consciousness including its most 
fundamental principles, such as the ideas of cause and of 
self. This associationism is, clearly, a nominalistic empiri- 
cism; and, because, in many of its forms, it lays stress on 
the reduction of all consciousness to sensation, it is often 
known as sensationalism. 

In favor of associationism several considerations may be 
urged. It abandons the incomprehensible metaphysics of the 
soul for a concrete study of the facts of consciousness. It 
employs scientific method, the method of analysis. It is, or 
aims to be, a complete account of consciousness. It calls at- 
tention to many undeniable laws of the structure of con- 
sclousness. 

Nevertheless associationalism may be criticized. It is 
professedly empirical, seeking to explain consciousness in 
terms of what is actually experienced, but it tells us that all 
ideas are made up of sensations. ‘Pure’ sensations, how- 
ever ,—that is, sensations from which all thought and idea are 
lacking, never occur in our experience. They are abstrac- 
tions to which a psychology based on experience has no 
right. Further, if there were a pure sensation, it would 
last only as long as it was consciously experienced; after it 
had departed from consciousness, it would be annihilated. 
It is difficult to see how an idea can copy a past sensation 
that no longer exists. Either the sensation must continue 


180 WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS? 


to lead a subterranean existence after its original appear- 
ance in consciousness, whence it may be dug up (so to 
speak), when needed; or else the idea that copies the orig- 
inal sensation has the property of leaping over the interven- 
ing period of the non-existence of the sensation to the time 
when it originally appeared, somehow reviving the past and 
then copying it. This seems to involve far more than the 
associationist is willing to admit; yet, if his theory is to be 
intelligible he must admit it,—and abandon the principles of 
his theory. 

One of the problems precipitated by associationism is the 
problem of the self. If associationism be true, not only is 
there no soul, but there is also no self as an ultimate con- 
scious unity. What we call our self or self-consciousness is 
then only a complex bundle of sensations. It is noteworthy 
that Hume himself and John Stuart Mill, two of the greatest 
associationists, themselves confess difficulty with their con- 
clusions about self-consciousness. Hume says, “Upon a 
more strict review of the section concerning personal iden- 
tity, I find myself involved in such a labyrinth that, I must 
confess, I neither know how to correct my former opinions, 
nor how to render them consistent.’”?* He goes on to review 
the arguments for the associationist analysis of consciousness, 
and then honestly to confess, ‘Having thus loosened all our 
particular perceptions, when I proceed to explain the prin- 
ciple of connection, which binds them together, and makes 
us attribute to them a real simplicity and identity, I am sen- 
sible that my account is very defective, and that nothing but 
the seeming evidence of the precedent reasonings could have 
induced me to receive it. . . . All my hopes vanish when I 
come to explain the principles that unite our successive 


1 Treatise of Human Nature, Everyman’s Library Edition, Vol. II, pp. 
207 ff. 


ASSOCIATIONISM 181 


perceptions in our thought or consciousness. . . . Did our 
perceptions either inhere in something simple and individual, 
or did the mind perceive some real connection among them, 
there would be no difficulty in the case. For my part, I 
must plead the privilege of a skeptic, and confess that the 
difficulty is too hard for my understanding.” Hume, in 
other words, admits that associationism leads to an unintel- 
ligible account of self-consciousness. 

A like confession of failure is found in John Stuart Mill’s 
Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy." Mill 
asserts that “the theory ... which resolves mind into a 
series of feelings, with a background of possibilities of feel- 
ing, can effectually withstand the most invidious of the argu- 
ments directed against it. But, groundless as are the extrin- 
sic objections, the theory has intrinsic difficulties . . . which 
it seems to me beyond the power of metaphysical analysis 
to remove.” These difficulties he summarizes as follows, 
“Tf, therefore, we speak of the mind as a series of feelings, 
we are obliged to complete the statement by calling it a 
series of feelings which is aware of itself as past and future; 
and we are reduced to the alternative of believing that the 
mind, or Ego, is something different from any series of 
feelings, or of possibilities of them, or of acceptirz the 
paradox, that something which ex hypothesi is but a series 
of feelings, can be aware of itself as a series.” This is, he 
says, a “final inexplicability.” In other words, Mill, like 
- Hume, admits that the unity of consciousness is unintelligible 
on associationist principles. 

The frankness of Hume and Mill is an unusual spectacle 
in the history of philosophy and an instructive one; for it 
shows the inevitable consequences of an attempt to under- 
stand the mind by the use of analytic method alone. 


-1See pages 260-262. 


182 WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS? 


Analysis is, indeed, necessary. But our conscious life is 
not a mere collection of separate sensations or parts of any 
kind; it is an organic whole, and can therefore be understood 
only by a synoptic method. 


§ 7, FUNCTIONAL THEORIES 


Psychology has recognized the defects of associationism 
arising from its exclusively analytic or structural point of 
view. Modern psychology has, in large measure, become 
functional. That is to say, it aims not merely to analyze 
the conscious life, as associationism did, but to interpret that 
life as a process, considering what it does, what ends it 
serves, what functions it fulfills. This functional point of 
view is obviously synoptic, for it considers consciousness or 
some group of conscious processes as a whole. 

The development of functional theories in modern psychol- 
ogy has been in two different directions, the biological, and 
self-psychology. 

Biological functionalism is an outgrowth both of the 
inner development of psychology and of the modern interest 
in biology. Obviously consciousness performs biological 
functions; it directs the organism in its adaptations to 
environment and aids the survival and development of life. 
Interest in the biological relations of consciousness has been 
increasing. At first, the functional approach was regarded 
as one among many possible points of view; then arose a 
group of psychologists who tended to maintain that the 
biological function of consciousness was the only one worth 
noticing and that all conscious process should be interpreted 
exclusively from the biological point of view; finally, the 
extreme behaviorists took the ground that consciousness is 
physiological behavior and nothing else. 


BEHAVIORISM 183 


The functionalists who advocate self-psychology have 
been less numerous and less full in their expositions than 
the biological group. Their point of view is, however, 
sharply to be differentiated from biological functionalism. 
It holds that conscious process can never be truly described 
in terms of anything else, even if that something else be so 
near and so important as the behavior of our bodies. It 
believes that self-experience is the fundamental fact of con- 
scious life, and that consciousness can never be understood 
without taking into account the attitudes, the aims and the 
preferences,—in short, the functions,—of selves. We shall 
proceed to consider these two types of functionalism. 


§8. BEHAVIORISM 


We shall study the extreme type of biological function- 
alism known as behaviorism; for it is the only type about 
which there is fundamental difference of opinion. 

(1) DerrniTIon. The term bJehaviorism is used in at 
least two different senses, and current discussion is con- 
fused on account of failure to discriminate these meanings. 
One of these meanings was considered in § 2 of this chapter, 
as “Objective Observation of Behavior,’ or methodological 
behaviorism. It means merely that a study of behavior is 
our only method of gathering data about the consciousness of 
other people. Their words, their habits, their reactions to 
stimuli, in short their behavior, is our only clew* to what is 
going on in the minds of those around us. All psychologists 
and philosophers recognize and use behaviorism as a method. 
It has led to abundant concrete results and has the advantage 


1 Unless, indeed, there be truth in telepathy; but hitherto telepathy has 
given us exceedingly meager results, and pretended telepathic data have 
to be checked up by later objective observations. 


184 WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS? 


of being precise and objective, as well as of being a method 
that lends itself to use in comparative psychology. No objec- 
tion can reasonably be raised to behaviorism as method. 
Objection, however, may be raised to the attitude of enthu- 
siasts who would make it the only method to the exclusion 
of introspective, analytic, and functional study. Every road 
that leads to truth is trodden by the feet of philosophy; 
obstructions placed in any such road are the work, to say 
the least, of her misguided friends. 

The second meaning of behaviorism is metaphysical. 
Metaphysical behaviorism goes much further than method- 
ological behaviorism and is accepted by a much smaller 
group. It is the view which asserts that consciousness is 
behavior; that our sensations, our thoughts, our feelings 
and all that we have called our conscious life are (in so far 
as they are at all) simply physiological reactions of our 
organism, adjustments to environment; or, to put it bluntly, 
consciousness is the motion of matter in space. Professors 
EK. A. Singer and J. B. Watson were the chief founders of 
this view, and Professor John Dewey holds to a form of 
it. Many others are more or less convinced of its truth, and 
it has exerted an influence disproportionate to the numbers 
of those holding it. 

(2) CONSIDERATIONS LEADING TO BEHAVIORISM.' Prob- 
ably the development of biological science is among the 
chief causes for the growth of behaviorism. The more men 
know about the facts of life and its evolution, the simpler it 
appears to some minds to explain all the facts of experience 
in exclusively biological terms. 

Confirming this biological interest, there is the proved use- 
fulness of methodological behaviorism. If a study of be- 


1From this point on, the word behaviorism will be used to mean 
metaphysical behaviorism. 


BEHAVIORISM 185 


havior is our only means of learning about human con- 
sciousness, why not admit (the behaviorists say) that we 
are studying behavior and nothing else? 

Further, behavior is something public, observable by all. 
When we speak of behavior we can point at it and say, 
There it is. It is, therefore, suitable subject-matter for 
science. But if I say I am introspectively conscious, I can- 
not point to my consciousness of love or hate, of memory or 
hope, and say, There it is. I can speak to others words of 
love or hope; I can show others by my behavior that I hate 
or remember; but I cannot reasonably invite others to in- 
spect my love or my hate, itself, as a conscious process. 
Hence, ask the behaviorists, if consciousness is inaccessible, 
if it is a state secret hidden from the public, why assert that 
it exists? There would seem to be no scientific ground for 
asserting that there is any such thing. Consciousness, they 
might say, is like yonder cloud, ‘‘almost in shape of a camel 
. . . backed like a weasel . . . very like a whale’; in short, 
something of which no scientific truth can be asserted with 
the means at our command. 

The ideal of the unity of the sciences is one that exerts 
great influence on thinkers. In accordance with this ideal, 
the fundamental methods of all the sciences and the funda- 
mental realities with which they deal should all be intimately 
related, and should belong to one system of nature. Now 
most of the sciences deal with the properties of physical 
things at various stages of organization. The demand for 
the unity of the sciences (a form of the logical ideal of 
coherence) leads many to adopt the standpoint known as 
materialism or naturalism, which seeks to unify our knowl- 
edge of all reality by interpreting everything in terms of 
physical nature. From a naturalistic standpoint, conscious- 
ness is doubtless a nuisance. It fills none of the space in 


186 WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS? 


which naturalism finds all of its objects. It gayly transcends 
the time that naturalism wishes to keep real and orderly. 
Not being physical, consciousness is not subject to the law 
of the conservation of energy, and still it seems to make a 
difference to physical energy, such that the reign of the law 
itself is imperiled. No wonder that devoted naturalists call 
consciousness supernatural! No wonder that some of them 
solve the problem by denying the awkward fact and turning 
behaviorist! 

A special application of this last point should be made, 
namely, the effect of behaviorism on the famous mind-body 
problem. Traditional solutions of the problem (which will 
be discussed more fully later in the chapter) have given no 
general satisfaction. The belief that mind and body interact 
threatened the whole naturalistic position and was therefore 
strongly resisted by many; the belief that mind and body are 
parallel series, occurring at the same time but never inter- 
acting, satisfied the laws of naturalism, but left consciousness 
in a posture so absurd and otiose as to arouse mingled laugh- 
ter and tears. If, then, one is to reject both interactionism 
and parallelism, one sees in behaviorism promise of happy 
release; for it holds that there is no problem about the rela- 
tion of mind and body, since mind and body are one. 

Finally, behaviorism appears to avoid the defects of 
earlier views of the nature of consciousness. It has no 
transcendent and meaningless soul; it deals with observed 
facts only. It does not, like associationism, analyze con- 
sciousness into units of sensation, but it regards mind as 
active functioning, spontaneous response to stimuli, and thus, 
in a sense, avails itself of the synoptic method. 

Extraordinary as is the behavioristic thesis, then, it is 
not without plausible grounds. 7 

(3) DIFFICULTIES WITH BEHAvioRISM. The objections 


BEHAVIORISM 187 


to behaviorism, however, are regarded by many as sufficiently 
serious to overthrow the theory. 

First of all, behaviorism is a theory that rests on the 
denial of facts, namely, the facts of introspection. There is 
no point in the behaviorist criticism of introspection unless 
it be true that there are introspective facts, which the be- 
haviorist judges unworthy or impossible of scientific study, 
and hence, nonexistent. But the facts are there. Imme- 
diate experience testifies to them. The behaviorist’s only 
possible reply would be that he does not mean to deny any 
facts; he means only to reinterpret them. If that is all he 
means, he is loyally working at the task of science. Buta 
reinterpretation must find room for all the facts, and be- 
haviorism has no room at all for such facts as: the way I 
feel about my behavior, my conscious life of which I am 
aware while unaware of my behavior, my consciousness of 
the meaning of words as quite distinct from the utterance 
of the words. The apparent advantages of behaviorism— 
its dealing with objects common to all, its avoidance of the 
mind-body problem—are derived from its ignoring of these 
facts of consciousness that cause the difficulty. Such advan- 
tages are too dearly bought if one desires the whole truth. 

Our conscious life, the critic of behaviorism may go on 
to say, far from being identical with our behavior is only 
roughly symbolized by it. If we know anything, we know 
what we mean by a reference to the past or the future; be- 
havior can symbolize these meanings by words or gestures, 
but the words or gestures of behavior convey meaning only 
because consciousness interprets them. Mind, as we know 
by constant experience, can refer to an absent object; be- 
havior can acquire that reference only through a mind that 
interprets it. Or, to take another illustration, universals are 
objects of conscious experience that behavior can never fully 


188 WHAT FS "CON SCTOUSNESS? 


express. We know consciously what we mean by a truth 
that is always true; no amount or kind of behavior, apart 
from conscious thought, could ever express “always.” We 
experience a consciousness of moral obligation and of ideal 
values; while our behavior shows our practice of such ideals, 
the experienced sense of obligation itself or the ideal of 
truthfulness can never be a mere fact of behavior. Be- 
havior may symbolize or suggest meaning; it is not the 
actual conscious experience. of meanings. 

Further, much consciousness is irrelevant to behavior. In 
the ordinary field of visual attention, we see many objects 
to which we never “react’”’; and we imagine sights and sounds, 
colors and words to which we never give expression in be- 
havior. If the behaviorist says that in all these cases there 
really is an elementary form of behavior, his theory has 
become as transcendent and hypothetical as the soul-theory 
at its worst; if I believe that my imagination of purple and 
crimson sunsets is really an incipient motion of some parts 
of my body, and nothing else, then I explain zgnotum per 
ignotius; * for if the imagined sunset be an “unknown,” the 
hypothetical motion is still more unknown. 

The truth of the behaviorist’s contention rests on the 
truth of his naturalistic assumption. He assumes that 
physical things are known to be ultimately real, and pro- 
ceeds to explain “consciousness” entirely in terms of the 
physical things. There are grave difficulties in any natural- 
istic materialism which need not be recited here. One com- 
ment may suffice: if physical things (matter moving in 
space) be truly real and be all that is truly real then all 
thinking is simply a form of physical motion (reaction to 
stimuli, behavior). If this be taken seriously, it is hard to 
see why one set of motions of matter in space is any better 


1“The unknown by the more unknown.” 


SELF-PSYCHOLOGY 189 


or truer than any other. What logical right has any set of 
motions to “judge”’ the others as false or inadequate; indeed, 
how can it judge at all? That is to say, the naturalistic 
basis of behaviorism makes all judging, all distinctions be- 
tween truth and error, as well as all values, impossible,-— 
unless one surreptitiously assumes a conscious mind around 
the corner that is thinking about motions and behavior 
and judging them. 


§9. SELF-PSYCHOLOGY (PERSONALISTIC 
PSYCHOLOGY) 


(1) BACKGROUND AND DEFINITION. The theories thus 
far considered have all been adjudged inadequate; soul- 
psychology, associationism, and behaviorism either go beyond 
what the facts of consciousness justify or fall short of includ- 
ing all the facts. The latter defect is the more serious; 
for every theory must, in a sense, go beyond the facts as 
given. Merely to stare at the facts and see them as they 
appear at the moment is far from understanding them. The 
soul-psychology sought for an hypothesis to explain the 
given facts of conscious life; in this search it was quite right. 
The inadequacy of its hypothesis lay in the fact that it 
was unintelligible and unintelligibly related to the actual 
conscious life. In avoiding the excesses of the soul-psychol- 
ogy, associationism narrowed its range unduly, and ex- 
cluded actual unifying experiences in consciousness as a 
whole; while behaviorism adopted the heroic measure of 
omitting consciousness entirely and trying to explain what 
it had omitted in terms of some of its causes and effects in 
behavior. 

Evidently what is needed is a theory of consciousness 
that will do justice to all the facts and will offer an intel- 


190 WHATS CONSCIOUSNESS? 


ligible theory to interpret them. What is called self-psychol- 
ogy, or personalistic psychology, aims to meet this need. 
It is based on the fact that conscious states or processes 
belong together in a unique way. Consciousness and physical 
matter both come clustered; single sensations and single 
electrons do not occur alone. But any constituent of one 
cluster of matter might be transferred to any other cluster; 
part of the wood that is now my desk might be split up 
and burned in the fireplace, without loss of matter or 
energy. Consciousness is utterly different from matter in 
this respect; a state of consciousness does not continue to 
exist if separated from the cluster in which it occurs. Items 
of matter (physics assumes) keep on with their career 
wherever they are; items of consciousness exist only in the 
context in which they first occur and then fade out of exist- 
ence, leaving traces in the physical organism and perhaps in 
the subconscious (whatever that may be), but having no 
continuous being. 

Consciousness has been compared to a stream; but in a 
stream each molecule of water has a permanent existence, 
while molecules of consciousness appear and disappear. 
They have no continuous and permanent existence. Con- 
sciousness is better compared to a moving picture in which 
everything changes, nothing abides. Yet even the com- 
parison with the moving picture is defective, for it ignores 
the most striking and unique thing about consciousness. 
Although particular states of consciousness vanish like the 
pictures on the screen and are far more transient and 
evanescent than matter is supposed to be; although it may 
even happen that consciousness is suspended entirely by 
sleep or accident,—nevertheless conscious ‘“‘clusters” have a 
property that gives them a stability entirely different from 
that of what we call matter. This is the property that con- 


SELF-PSYCHOLOGY - 191 


sciousness has of experiencing itself as belonging together 
and as belonging with past (and even future) clusters. This 
fact of experiencing consciousness as belonging together in 
a unique way is called self-experience. A self (or person) 
is conscious life thus experienced; and so far as we know, 
consciousness from the lowest to the highest forms is always 
thus experienced. Complete destruction of self-experience 
would be equivalent to complete destruction of consciousness 
as a process. 

Certain misunderstandings of the self (or person) need to 
be cleared up. 

Self-experience, of which we have been speaking, is not 
to be confused with reflective self-consciousness. Self- 
experience is always present wherever there is consciousness; 
it is the experience of the whole experience as belonging 
together and thus as being “mine.” But reflective self- 
consciousness, or self-knowledge, is what occurs when we 
stop to think about self-experience and say to ourselves, “I 
am I, the same self that was yesterday, with such and such 
experiences.” Reflective self-consciousness happens only 
occasionally in our introspective moments. Self-experience 
is always present. 

Self is not a separate and distinct element in consciousness 
to be distinguished from all other perceptions and thought. 
It is not a special phenomenon or a sort of atom around 
which the other atoms cluster. In other words, self-psychol- 
ogy approaches consciousness synoptically and function- 
ally rather than analytically. A self, then, is any conscious 
experience or process taken as a whole and as experiencing 
itself. The “soul”? was the hypostatization of this ‘“whole- 
ness’; but since the self is a concrete conscious reality, 
why push the soul off into the realm of the unknowable? 

The self, then, is not a mere unity (as the soul-theory 


192 WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS? 


held), nor mere multiplicity (as associationalists and be- 
haviorists believe), but it is a synthesizer of unity and multi- 
plicity. The self experiences the most widely varied contents 
as belonging together in the life that is ‘“my” consciousness. 
I may think of a hundred years and a slice of bread; of -1 
and love; of logic and of roses. Whatever objects are in 
my mind, however diverse and otherwise unrelated they may 
be, are genuinely related by their compresence in one mind. 
Selfhood, then, is unity in variety, the true synthesis of the 
manifold. : : 

Further, self-experience is not confined to the present 
moment; it is time*transcending. Indeed, there is no con- 
crete present moment that does not have duration, as is 
shown by the psychological account of the specious present.* 
Even in the specious present, self-experience transcends time, 
for it is the organization and unifying in one self of con- 
scious processes that last a certain time by the clock. 
Throughout the experience, I am the same self, whatever 
time it is; my experience belongs to the same person how- 
ever the seconds come and go. But the time-transcending 
property of the self is more far-reaching than the specious 
present. Self extends beyond the specious present into the 
past, saying, These experiences of yesterday belong to me; 
and into the future, with the assertion that I will my future 
to be thus and so. The self is indeed confined to conscious 
experience; it is no unconscious entity or mere capacity. 
But it transcends present experience, for all self-experience 
appropriates aspects of past and future, and reflective self- 
consciousness shows that all my conscious career belongs 
together as one self. The fact of personal identity thus 
abides through changing processes, and even crosses chasms 
of intervening unconsciousness, or abnormal consciousness, 


1 See a psychological text-book for a treatment of this subject. 


SELF-PSYCHOLOGY 193 


to assert, I am the same I that was before. No theory can 
be adequate that fails to recognize this time-transcending 
aspect of the self. 

(2) ARGUMENTS IN Favor oF SELF-PsycHoLocy. The 
foregoing treatment has shown that self-psychology avoids 
the defects of the soul-psychology, associationism, and be- 
haviorism. 

It is based on empirical facts, but is not confined to the 
analytic treatment of those facts. Its synoptic view of con- 
sciousness renders it inclusive. 

It is presupposed by memory. Memory is more than the 
repetition in consciousness of what has been experienced in 
the past; there must also be recognition of the fact that the 
present conscious content truly refers to what I experienced 
in the past. The self-psychology gives a meaning to this 
assertion; both the remembered experience and the memory 
of it belong to the same self, to the same organic whole of 
conscious life that belongs together and is one and the same 
person throughout. But if there were no true self-identity 
there could be no true memory; we could only say “this 
multiplication table was learned long ago,” not “I remember 
having learned it.” 

Likewise it is presupposed by thinking. The thought- 
process consists in relating judgments so as to come to a 
conclusion, solve a problem, or discover logical implica- 
tions. A thought-process takes a certain amount of time 
and is complex. Now, if the parts or aspects of this com- 
plex process were not present to one mind the thinking 
process could not advance. If there are the two ideas that 
‘“‘All agents are shameless” and “This man is an agent,” the 
inference that “This man is shameless” will never be drawn 
so long as those ideas are merely separate and distinct. It 
is only when one mind is able to grasp the two premises and 


194 WHAT WS -CON 5S CLOMSNE SS’? 


compare them that inference can occur. The appeal to a 
soul entirely outside of consciousness sheds no light on the 
conscious relating of the judgments in question. The analysis 
of consciousness into discrete states by associationism makes 
purposive thinking unintelligible, for we found Hume himself 
unable to put Humpty Dumpty together again. The asser- 
tion that consciousness is behavior is a denial that the 
thought process exists. Either we must deny the facts of in- 
tellectual experience or grant that thinking is always self- 
experience. Thus only is it intelligible to say (as we must) 
that ideas occurring at different times are yet members of the 
same mind and capable of being thought about and organized 
by that mind. The ideal of thought, logical coherence, can 
be attained or even conceived only by a mind that is capable 
of relating all its members in a system that is one coherent 
whole. Only a person can think; thought is a personal act. 

Finally, the self-psychology gives the only satisfactory 
account of values. The considerations that have just been 
cited about thinking apply with even greater force to values, 
as may be seen by reference to Chapter V, where values 
were discussed. Valuation is an experience in which the 
entire person is engaged; it includes thinking and all the 
other functions of consciousness fused into one ideal whole. 
If only persons can think and all thought is personal, how 
much truer is it that only persons can value and that all 
value is personal. | 

(3) OBJECTIONS TO SELF-PsycHOLoGYy. Certain objec- 
tions to our view of the self, or person, have been urged. 
If these objections should turn out to be unanswerable, we 
should either be driven back to one of the views that already 
have been discussed and rejected or should be reduced to 
skepticism, pending the emergence of a new and unheard-of 
conception of mind. 


SELF-PSYCHOLOGY 195 


The first objection that is likely to make itself heard is 
that the self is not a genuine unity because (as the associa- 
tionists say) it is capable of being analyzed into elements, 
or aspects, or functions,—at any rate into parts of some 
sort. What is the self but an assemblage of sensations, 
reactions, inhibitions, and the like? This objection is seem- 
ingly scientific. There are, however, two facts that render 
it nugatory. 

First, the parts into which a self may be analyzed are 
mere abstractions, having no existence prior to their mem- 
bership in the self or apart from it. This entirely differen- 
tiates the ultimate unity of a self from the unity of things. 
The elements of a thing have existed before in other relations; 
our body is built up by food that only a little while ago was 
in the body of some other organism. But the actual trans- 
fer of thought-elements from the mind of one person to the 
mind of another does not take place; all the sensations that 
every one will ever experience are not doled out from some 
general reservoir to our minds as needed. When I see the 
morning paper, my self responds to a physical stimulus by a 
conscious perception; but that perception exists only while 
I am conscious of it, and it never had and never will have 
any existence save in and for me. The self cannot be ex- 
plained in terms of elements; the elements exist only for the 
self. 

Secondly, the analytic study of self is quite possible and 
valid (if understood as just explained), but needs to be sup- 
plemented by the synoptic study which, as we have seen, 
leads to the recognition of a real unity of self-experience as 
the basic fact of mind. 

The temporal and intermittent character of finite selfhood, 
to which allusion was made earlier in the chapter, is a per- 
sistent difficulty. How (we are asked) can that be a true 


196 WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS? 


unity which is interrupted by sleep, by drugs, by accident, 
by disease, and by death? Even if it be granted that the 
self can bridge the gaps of unconsciousness by its time-trans- 
cending powers, there remains the question, What is the 
self during the interval of unconsciousness? 

If we are to be consistent in our thinking, we must not 
pass lightly over this difficulty, which is peculiarly critical 
for the self-psychology. The believer in the “soul” may say, 
The soul endures whether you sleep or wake. The associa- 
tionist may say, These intervals of unconsciousness are 
proof of my thesis that there is no true unity in selfhood. 
The behaviorist may say, The physiological organism fur- 
nishes all the unity and continuity that is needed, and when 
it dies, self is gone. But the personalistic psychologist has 
no such easy, offhand answer as the others. He has to 
admit that the human self is fragmentary, incomplete, inter- 
rupted. It seems very probable that we are at times uncon- 
scious, and our self nonexistent; although it is possible 
that consciousness always goes on, which, in our waking 
moments, we forget. At best, the linkage between our con- 
scious and unconscious periods is very loose. ‘The self- 
psychologist may, however, derive comfort from the fact 
that this trait of the finite self adds greatly to the signif- 
icance, of the time-transcending function of a mind which, in 
a flash, every morning resumes its interrupted existence and 
knows itself as the one that went to sleep eight hours before. 
Even so, the self-psychologist must admit that finite selfhood 
is a very imperfect realization of the ideal of selfhood that 
is suggested by our moments of fullest personal experience. 
The finite self is incomplete and dependent not meeting the 
full demands of the lex continut. 

Yet these defects, serious as they may appear, are not 
arguments against the self-psychology. No fact that per- 


SELF-PSYCHOLOGY 197 


sonalists build on is thereby denied. The utmost that is 
proved is that human selves are imperfect selves, dependent 
on the rest of the universe for their continued existence. 
The self-psychologist, then, does not question any of the 
facts alleged; he fully recognizes them and maintains that the 
easy solutions offered by the other psychologies are easy 
because they do not face the full difficulty of the facts. 
Only true selfhood can unify the fragments of human con- 
sciousness into a mind that is truly one; yet not even self- 
hood (if there are none but human selves) is what a true and 
fully coherent self ought to be. 

Much has been made of the fact that the content of con- 
sciousness changes radically in our career from the cradle 
to the grave. Since, however, it is the nature of a self to 
be the unity of varied and changing contents, this objection 
has little force at the present stage of our investigation. 

The physiological psychologist, who need not have gone 
to the extreme of behaviorism, will probably have become 
impatient with our discussion if he has had the tenacity to 
keep reading to this point. He may say that consciousness 
has a purely physiological basis and is a purely physiological 
function. At any rate, he would urge, the structure and 
function of consciousness can never be understood if you 
leave physiology out of account; and all the discussion of 
this chapter has floated on the clouds of mere consciousness. 
Come down to the facts, invites the physiologist, consider 
the organic basis and functions of consciousness; then you 
will know what it is. 

This physiological invitation has been heeded by many 
contemporary psychologists. Now the facts of physiology 
are facts, and important ones; they should by no means be 
disregarded. But the facts of consciousness are also impor- 
tant facts; if consciousness cannot be understood when the 


198 WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS? 


physiological facts are neglected, much less can it be under- 
stood if the very facts of consciousness itself are neglected. 
Physiology may tell us much about the causes and the 
effects of consciousness; it tells us nothing whatever about 
the inner structure, function and meaning of consciousness. 
In the unification of our knowledge at which philosophy aims 
certainly the two sets of facts should be related. It would 
not be an edifying spectacle for physiology and psychology 
each to assert its standpoint unrelated to the other,—‘‘you 
in your small corner, and I in mine.” But on the other 
hand, physiology has no right uncritically to assume that its 
point of view is the final normative truth.’ The true view 
of mind must take into account the facts of physiology; yes, 
but not of physiology alone. All that mind is and does must 
be included. If the physiologist is genuinely interested in 
facts and not in partisan advocacy of his departmental stand- 
point, he will acknowledge that the facts of physics and 
chemistry, of sociology and morals, of esthetic and religious 
experience, in short, of the setting of mind in its world, are 
as imperatively needed in the final philosophy of mind as 
is the standpoint of physiology. 

More searching are the objections to self-psychology that 
arise from abnormal phenomena. Even the non-technical 
reader has had the facts of dual and multiple personality, 
of “‘split-off’ consciousness, of the whole domain of what 
is called the ‘‘subconscious,”’ brought to his attention so 
often in this age of popularization of psychology that a de- 
tailed recital of the data is unnecessary.” It is a common- 


vs As appears to be done by Dr. F. X. Dercum, The Physiology of . 
ind. 


2 See Coriat, Abnormal Psychology, Prince, The Unconscious, Richard~ 
son, Spiritual Pluralism, pp. 244-328, or any one of the many other 
treatments of the subject. 


SELF-PSYCHOLOGY 199 


place that conscious processes, perception, reasoning, desire, 
and the like, seem to go in connection with our bodily organ- 
ism without being integrated with our self-experience; and 
these processes are often organized into definite and aggres- 
sive “selves” of their own so that two or three or more 
“selves” assert themselves at different times, sometimes in 
fiendish hostility to the “normal” self, as in cases ascribed 
to demonic possession, and sometimes with malicious play- 
fulness, as in the case of Miss Beauchamp’s “Sally.” Some- 
times psychotherapy is able to banish the abnormal self, 
sometimes to merge the various selves in a new normal self. 

In this psychic chaos, where and what is the self? Many 
argue that the true self is the subconscious, not the con- 
scious; for it is as unreasonable, they hold, to say that the 
conscious self is the true self as to say that the surface of 
the sea is the true ocean,—while there are floods below 
where swim monsters of the deep. The opponents of self- 
psychology urge that self-consciousness is shown by abnor- 
mal psychology to be so dependent and unstable that it 
cannot be the ultimate term for the understanding of con- 
sciousness. , 

At this point, the advocate of soul-psychology may say 
that he alone holds the key to the situation; he alone has a 
principle for interpreting the unity and identity of person- 
ality, whatever the changes in the phenomena of conscious- 
ness. The soul is one and the same, he asserts, however 
troubled may be the stream of consciousness. To all of 
which, the reply is: Yes, you soul-psychologist, you have a 
word for the occasion; but alas, it is only a word! Any 
hypothesis that explains facts is useful and acceptable; but 
an hypothesis like that of the traditional soul, which, by a 
mere name for something-I-know-not-what, aims to explain 


200 WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS? 


the difficulties in what I know, is a verbal and empty explana- 
tion, rendering nothing intelligible. Mere mystification will 
not do. 

Again, it is the turn of the associationist and behaviorist 
to triumph for a moment; for the problems of abnormal psy- 
chology are mere problems of association or functional 
organization for them. But the apparent ease with which 
they deal with the abnormal does not refute the objections 
to their views which we have already considered. 

It behooves us, therefore, to consider whether, after all, 
the self-psychology may not offer the best way out of the 
tangle. The following considerations are offered, in the 
hope that they may shed light on the situation. 

The essence of self-psychology is the assertion that all 
consciousness is in the form of self-experience. It does 
not need to hold that there is only one possible self in con- 
nection with every physiological organism; it does not need 
to hold that every such self is permanent or consciously 
related to the “normal” self; much less does it need to hold 
that every self-experience is immortal (a point that seems 
to trouble many). 

Hence, self-psychology may well recognize that there are 
or may be other streams of consciousness than that of the 
normal self, connected with one human organism; the point 
insisted on is that every such stream or process is in the 
form of a self-experience, however brief, abnormal or transi- 
tory it may be. 

These other experiences, to which the name subconscious 
is given, since they are not integrated with the normal self- 
experience, are not a part of the normal self (for only its 
experience belongs to it), but rather a part of its environ- 
ment, like the physiological organism, the social order, the 
world of nature. The environment is intimately related to 


MIND-BODY PROBLEM 201 


the self; it causes many of the self’s processes; it responds 
to many of the states of the self; but, if consciousness means 
anything, it is absurd to say that that is a part of my con- 
sciousness which is not experienced to be a part of it. And 
we surely experience neither our subconscious nor our brain 
nor other persons nor things as parts of our consciousness. 
We refer to them as something other than our self-experience. 

The self-psychology leaves many problems to metaphysics. 
The value of the various selves, normal and abnormal and 
their place in the cosmos are points on which no psychology 
is competent to decide. 


§ 10. THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM 


In our study of the problems thus far we have gained an 
introductory view of bodies and of minds. We may at this: 
point profitably sketch the possible theories of the mind- 
body relation. 

If the theories be arranged on the principles adopted in 
this book, we shall begin with those that emphasize physical 
things and proceed toward those that emphasize conscious- 
ness. 

Materialism is the theory that explains mind in terms 
of body (i. e., physical things). Pure materialism holds that 
mind is a form of matter; behaviorism, for instance, is a 
materialistic theory. Modified materialism holds that mind 
is wholly an effect of body, and hence is called epiphenom- 
enalism. We have examined behaviorism and shown that it 
or any other possible form of materialism is a very 
improbable hypothesis, for the following reasons: all knowl- 
edge of matter is dependent on the validity of mind and its 
thoughts, the properties of mind are, as we have shown, 
utterly different from those of matter, and it is far more 


202 WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS? 


probable that physical things are due to a Supreme Mind, 
than that all mind is due to physical things.* 

Parallelism has been suggested as a solution of the diffi- 
culty. Parallelism is the theory that mind and body are 
two parallel series or processes, such that for every state 
of mind there is a contemporaneous state of body, but that 
mind causes no change in body and body no change in mind. 
This theory preserves the reality of both mind and body; 
and keeps each a closed system, thus doing homage to the 
hypothesis of the conservation of energy; for if energy 
should leak out from the physical system into the system of 
consciousness, some actual physical energy would be \ost, 
and the total amount of energy in the physical system would 
not remain constant. 

Parallelism thus patches up a truce between psychology 
and physics, and recognizes the force of the philosophical 
objections to materialism. But this truce, like the peace of 
which Nietzsche speaks, is but a means to new wars. Is it 
conceivable that the universe is forever split into two dis- 
parate orders, each of which is powerless to affect the other? 
Is it conceivable that if mind were blotted out, body would 
compose the plays of Shakespeare, would speak and write the 
words of Einstein? 7? Is it conceivable that if bodies were 
blotted out mind would still see the faces and forms, the 
earth and sky of our every-day experience? Is it conceiv- 
able that mind has had no influence on the evolution of 
body or body on the evolution of mind? Would this hypoth- 
esis not split our world in two? Yet parallelism asks us not 
alone to conceive but even to accept such an incoherent 
world as the true world. That this hypothesis could ever 


1 See Chapters IV, VII, VIII and IX. 
2 The so-called automaton theory, based on parallelism, holds that this 
would be true! 


MIND-BODY PROBLEM 203 


be entertained by great minds is a tribute to human ingenuity 
in the presence of a difficult problem, but it would surely be 
better to adopt no view at all than so unreasonable a one! 

Realizing the objections to extreme parallelism, certain of 
its advocates seek to pass the impassable barrier that their 
theory has created by what is called the double aspect theory. 
This theory holds that the situation described by parallelism 
is true, but that it is to be explained by assuming that mind 
and matter are two aspects of one and the same fact; just as 
an orange looks yellow and tastes sweet, but is only one 
orange, so reality looked at in one way is matter, in another, 
mind. This theory may take numerous forms: it may say 
that my mind and my brain are different ways of looking at 
some tertium quid that is neither mind nor brain; or that 
my brain is really mind, apprehended by the senses; or that 
my mind is really my brain, experienced from within. No 
other combinations are possible. In every case these 
theories add to the puzzle of why the universe should 
express itself in two different ways which have no effect 
on each other, the further puzzle of how two different objects, 
with entirely different properties, may be said to be one and 
the same. The tertium quid makes things still worse by add- 
ing an unintelligible hypothetical entity to explain the difficul- 
ties in experience. No form of parallelism is satisfac- 
tory. 

Neutral realism is a recent attempt of the so-called Amer- 
ican new realism* to find a way out. Together with most 
modern thinkers, these new realists hold that both material- 
ism and parallelism have failed to solve the problem. They 
apply to the mind-body problem the results of their general 
philosophy, based on an exclusively analytic method and on 
an epistemological monism. According to them, the dis- 

1 See the volume by Holt and others, The New Realism. 


204 WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS? 


tinction between consciousness and physical things is not 
ultimate, but everything that makes up a mind or the world 
of things is capable of being analyzed into “neutral” terms 
and relations, z.e., into entities that are neither peculiarly 
physical nor peculiarly mental. We find them in our minds 
and also in the physical world. ‘These neutral entities such 
as the points into which mathematics analyzes space, the 
quality blue, the relations to-the-right-of or more-than, if 
grouped in certain ways are physical objects; a peculiar 
grouping of these same entities (in relation to a nervous sys- 
tem) is called consciousness. Just as one point may be in 
two lines at their intersection, so the same object may be 
both in the physical world and in mind. There is thus no 
ultimate distinction between matter and mind. 

This system is, however, in unstable equilibrium. Scarcely 
any two neo-realists fully agree in their interpretation of 
consciousness. Based as it is on epistemological monism and 
exclusively analytic method, it is open to the criticisms that 
have been directed against these standpoints; and it fails to 
overcome the positive arguments in favor of a self-psy- 
chology. Neutral realism is an interesting experiment in 
philosophy, but it probably does not open a path toward the 
better understanding of the self. 

Interactionism is the only other theory that has been 
proposed. It is the belief that mind and body act on 
each other; that sometimes the initiative comes from one 
side, and sometimes from the other. This is what the 
common man takes for granted; and for once he may 
be right! It is interesting to note that after all, most of 
the theories that we have been discussing tacitly admit 
interaction. Materialism, behaviorism, neutral realism, all 
grant that mind (whatever it may be) affects body (what- 
ever it may be); and vice versa. Parallelism and epiphe- 


MIND-BODY PROBLEM 205 


nomenalism are the only views that entirely deny it; and we 
have seen into what difficulties they fall. 

Experience speaks in favor of interactionism. If the 
word cause has any meaning, it is just as true that we 
observe causal relations between mental and physical states 
as that we observe them within the physical series. The 
function of mind in evolution, the works of mind in the 
monuments of civilization, the facts of psychotherapy are 
evidence too clear to be denied. 

Since interactionism is patently demonstrated, why should 
any one be so absurd as to question the simple fact that 
mind influences body, and body influences mind? 

Let us consider three outstanding arguments against in- 
teractionism. 

First, it is held that two beings so different as mind and 
body cannot be conceived as interacting. If mind be entirely 
non-spatial and its nature is to be conscious, and if body 
be space-filling and its nature is to move in space, how can 
any consciousness lay hold of matter to move it? How 
can matter, aiming ever so carefully, hit a consciousness 
that is nowhere in space? ‘This is a real difficulty so long 
as mind and body are regarded as belonging to utterly dif- 
ferent orders of being. But if we adopt the hypothesis sug- 
gested in the chapter on Physical Things and regard body 
itself as the expression of a Supreme Mind, the difficulty 
vanishes; for the problem of interaction between mind and 
body becomes the problem of the interaction between human 
minds and the Supreme Mind, and nature is, as Berkeley 
says, the divine language. The utmost that remains is the 
right of physical science to treat spatial relations and ignore 
the part played by consciousness in the world. 

The problem of interaction between minds is itself no 
simple one to solve, but there must be a reasonable solution, 


206 WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS? 


for to deny that minds can somehow interact is to render 
our whole experience unintelligible. Even Leibniz, who 
tried to shut up minds into monads that ‘“‘have no windows,” 
granted that each monad is in communication with God, “the 
Monad of monads,”’ and has a window open toward him. 

Secondly, it is said that interaction violates the physical 
law of the conservation of energy,—the theory that the 
amount of energy in the universe is never increased or 
diminished. Interaction asserts that the physical world is 
affected by the mental; and that work is therefore done in 
the material order by immaterial causes, a fact which would 
appear to mean an increase in the amount of physical 
energy in the universe. When body affects mind there would 
appear to be a loss. In answer to this, it has been suggested 
that the gains and the losses would be relatively slight and 
thus would in the end offset each other. It is, however, 
probably better to adopt a different approach. ‘The law of 
conservation of energy is, like all physical laws, intended 
for application to a physical system. ‘The universe as an 
organic and interacting whole is more than a physical sys- 
tem; it includes minds, and physics has nothing to say 
about minds. The conservation of energy as an abstract 
law may be true of the universe ideally conceived as a 
physical system; but not true of the universe as a whole, 
which contains minds as well as bodies. 

Thirdly, mechanistic physiology maintains that the hypoth- 
esis of mental action is quite unnecessary. It holds that 
every human act has a complete and adequate physiological 
explanation. The muscles cannot move unless directed by 
the nervous system; the nervous system does not act unless 
stimulated peripherally or centrally, and every stimulus is 
physical, and its pathway can be traced. There is something 
compact and persuasive about this view; something over- 


PERSONALITY IN PHILOSOPHY 207 


powering too, for it comes from the laboratory. But if we 
stop to think before we consent to be overpowered we shall 
perceive that it is after all a mere begging of the question. 
The catch lies in the assertion that every stimulus is physical. 
No physiologist can prove that this explanation of the origin 
of central stimulation is correct; he is studying physiological 
facts and will observe only physiological facts. The prob- 
lem cannot be solved by physiology alone, but both the 
physiological and psychological facts must be considered. 

It is significant that the case for interaction rests on 
factual considerations chiefly and on taking all aspects of 
experience into account; while the case against it rests on 
theories that are valid for physical aspects of the world, but 
are not valid for reality as a whole. Interactionism, then, 
would appear to be the true theory. 


SII. IS PERSONALITY AN ADEQUATE PHILO- 
SOPHICAL PRINCIPLE? 


Every thoughtful person wants to know all that human 
reason can know about the “value and destiny of the individ- 
ual,” and about whether the universe is friendly or indifferent 
to the ideals that we human persons cherish. For us few 
questions can be more important than the one: Is human 
personality something that can be regarded as real and as 
a clew to the infinite real that lies beyond our little selves; 
or is it merely an incidental product of an order that has 
no mind and no value? Does the universe know what it is 
doing? Is the source of all reality a mind, a person that 
thinks and knows and values? This is the profoundest prob- 
lem of life, which will not be silenced as long as the human 
mind can think. 

The results of the present chapter are, therefore, of 


208 WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS? 


great philosophical consequence. If associationalism, or 
behaviorism, or any form of materialism were true of the 
human mind, then it would be impossible to regard mind or 
personality as the source of being. For these views all per- 
sons are products of what is not a person; all mind must be 
explained in terms of the non-mental. Most forms of paral- 
lelism, likewise, exclude mind from a central place in reality. 
Parallelism regards mind as an impotent companion of 
matter, helpless ever to reach or to affect its material counter- 
part. The old soul-psychology * would make the supremacy 
of mind in the universe verbally possible, but its unintel- 
ligibility destroys its value as a philosophical hypothesis. 
The personalistic or self-psychology, on the other hand, is 
theoretically compatible with a universe in which mind may 
either be or not be supreme. It has the philosophical advan- 
tage of not closing the door to further investigation. 
There remains, then, the question, Is consciousness as self 
or person a principle which offers a clew to the nature of the 
universe as a whole? In our discussions of physical things, 
of universals and of values, we have discovered grounds for 
accepting this hypothesis. Other reasons will appear in the 
later progress of our study. Let us now examine the chief 
objections that have been leveled against personality as a 
philosophical principle. If any of these objections are con- 
clusive, every attempt to construct a personalistic meta- 
physics * must be abandoned. If such an attempt is doomed 
in advance to fail, the sooner we find it out, the better. 
(1) ANTHROPOMORPHIC CHARACTER OF PERSONALISM. 
Some hold that personalism is to be condemned as anthro- 


1 The author has no objection to the use of the term “soul” as an 
equivalent to “self,” “person,” or “mind,’ provided there is no touch of 
the old transcendent soul suggested by the word. 

2 Personalism is the name of any theory that makes personality the 
supreme philosophical principle. 


PERSONALITY IN PHILOSOPHY 209 


pomorphic. To interpret reality as personal is, they think, 
the mere self-assertion of the human race. Ever since 
Xenophanes acutely remarked that “the Ethiopians make 
their gods black and snub-nosed; the Thracians say theirs 
have blue eyes and red hair’’* intelligence has balked at 
ascribing to God a body. But many have felt that it was 
equally anthropomorphic to ascribe to him a mind. Yet 
there has been a strange oversight in the thinking of such 
critics. They have seemingly forgotten that everything 
they say about the universe, about matter, or mind, or truth, 
is an assertion that something in reality is truly described 
by something in our minds. In other words, all knowledge 
is anthropomorphic. We must, it is true, distinguish vicious 
anthropomorphism from the valid form. The vicious kind 
asserts without evidence or reason, on merely instinctive or 
traditional grounds, that there is a spirit in the tree because 
there is a spirit in my body; the valid form asserts that 
what I find in me as the most coherent and reasonable 
thought that my mind can form is true of reality,—or as 
near truth as I can reach. To condemn personalism because 
it uses what we find in man to understand what is beyond 
man is most superficial and unreasonable; the same logic 
would condemn all science and all objective thinking. 

(2) THE FRAGMENTARINESS OF THE SELF. In the course 
of the chapter the fragmentariness of the personal life has 
been discussed. If persons are as fragmentary, intermittent, 
and incomplete, as experience shows, how, some ask, can 
eternal reality be personal? 

The personalist may reply that one of the greatest merits 
of personality as a principle is its time-transcending prop- 
erty; the fact that it experiences the most diverse fragments 
as belonging to one identical personal life. Further, he 

1 Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy. 


210 WHATOTS: CONSCIOUSNESS? 


would insist that his conception must not be treated crudely 
and uncritically. Personalism does not mean that ultimate 
reality is just like your mind and mine with all their defects. 
It holds, rather, that our incomplete and fragmentary minds 
give rise to an ideal of a full and complete personality, that 
this ideal is the only one that fulfills the demands of coherent 
thinking, and hence that the perfect personality is real. 

(3) THE DEPENDENCE oF MIND ON Bopy. Every 
theory (except parallelism) holds that mind is in some 
sense dependent on body. How, then, asks the imperson- 
alist, can body be interpreted in terms of mind? The per- 
sonalist, of course, admits that the human mind is very 
intimately dependent on the human body; he never thought 
of picturing mind as independent of its environment,—social, 
physical, or physiological. 

The significance of the dependence of mind on body is, 
however, entirely contingent on what body is. If body, as 
we have found reason to believe, is itself an expression of 
the Supreme Mind, a human body is simply a point of inter- 
action between the Supreme Mind and the human mind. 
The dependence of mind on body is, therefore, no difficulty 
for personalism unless a materialistic view of body can 
be established. 

(4) SELF AND Not-SELF. A difficulty is found by some 
in the very nature of selfhood. A self is always opposed to 
a not-self; the self must know something, act on something 
other than itself. Epistemological dualism appears to assert 
this very thing! But the difficulty here is based on an insuf- 
ficiently analytic view of the knowledge relation. A self, in 
order to know and be, does not need to refer to a not-self; 
epistemological dualism involves only the belief that knowl- 
edge refers to something beyond the knowing process. When 
I know my own sensations, or hopes, or yesterdays, the act 


PERSONALITY IN PHIDOSOPHY: 21h} 


of knowing and the object known are distinct; yet both fall 
within the self. If the universe be, as personalism contends, 
a society of persons, the object of knowledge is always a 
real fact, distinct from the act of knowing, either within the 
knower or in some other person, but it is never anything 
utterly other than all selves, for everything that is belongs 
in the experience of persons. 

(5) SoctaL ORIGINS OF PERSONALITY.  Self-experience 
arises, it is said, only in society, and hence it cannot be 
ultimate. This is a strange argument to adduce against a 
theory that regards the universe as a society of persons. No 
personalist denies that finite persons are dependent centers. 
The social nature of personality is rather an argument for 
personality as an organic and connecting factor in the world 
than an argument against it! 

(6) THE SuBconscious. The facts of abnormal psy- 
chology are often cited as disproving that personality is a 
genuine principle of explanation. This point has already 
been discussed earlier in the chapter and does not need to 
be repeated here. 

It is not, then, impossible that consciousness contains the 
clew to reality. But philosophy should not come to any 
hasty conclusion. In the next chapter a survey of the 
various possible world-views will be given as a guide to the 
interpretation of the results thus far achieved. 


CHAPTER VIl 


THE CHIEF PHILOSOPHICAL WORLD 
VIEWS 


§ 1. INTRODUCTORY 


If coherence be the criterion of truth, the mere examina- 
tion of separate aspects of reality—things, universals and 
values, consciousness—will not lead to the whole truth. 
The lover of truth does not inquire merely, What does this 
or that particular mean? He asks also, What do particulars 
mean in their relation to experience as a whole? Philosophy 
therefore seeks not for fragments, but for a world. ‘This 
chapter will consider the chief world views that are seriously 
entertained by modern thinkers. The treatment will neces- 
sarily be a condensed survey. 


$2. ON WHAT DO ALL WORLD VIEWS AGREEP 


After the taste of philosophical differences that the reader 
of the previous chapters has had, he may be unprepared for 
the idea that all philosophers agree about anything. Yet 
if one uses the words all and philosophers in a judiciously 
relative sense, one may justly say that all philosophers base 
their world views on a few common presuppositions. 

All agree, for example, that experience as it comes is the 
starting-point of philosophy. All agree that this experience 
needs to be criticized if meaning is to be found in it. All 


agree that thinking is a necessary tool, and that thinking 
Zie 


DISAGREEMENTS 213 


is better than not thinking. All agree that some truth is 
at least relatively attainable. Even the skeptic, if he appeal 
to reason and not to emotion, has to grant this. All, save 
skeptics, hold that the body of known truth is capable of 
indefinite increase and improved interpretation. All agree 
in rejecting solipsism and in holding that something exists 
beyond the experience of the human individual; that it is 
impossible to reason without assuming the existence of 
other human selves and the world of nature,—at least, im- 
possible to reason about experience as a whole. No philos- 
opher of any importance among the ancients or the moderns 
has ever denied any of these common propositions; and 
they may be regarded as substantially axiomatic. Without 
them, coherent thinking is impossible. 

It may be further remarked that all philosophers, with a 
few notorious exceptions, have agreed in reverence for the 
higher values,—the true, the good, the beautiful, and the 
holy. They have been men of lofty devotion to ideals and 
of noble character. A study of the lives of the philosophers 
reveals scorn of the petty and the merely temporal in life, 
loyalty to what is truly eternal. 


§ 3. ON WHAT MOST IMPORTANT POINTS DO 
WORLD VIEWS DISAGREE? 


It is evident that the agreement of philosophers does 
not go far or last long. Even a list of disagreements, such 
as follows, will be the subject of further disagreement; for 
some will contend that the most significant issues have not 
been selected. The points will be stated in problem form. 

(1) Is A Wortp View PossisLE? The position that it 
is not possible is taken by skepticism and positivism. Most 
other philosophies would hold that it is possible. 


214 WORLD VIEWS 


(2) Is THE WorLD To BE VIEWED AS ONE OR AS 
Many? Granted that a world view is possible, a swarm 
of problems is on us. Yet the really fundamental ones are 
not so numerous as might be supposed. The problem of the 
One and the Many, as it has been called, is certainly one of 
the most persistent and important. From Heraclitus and 
Parmenides to Bergson and Eucken, James and Royce, 
Russell and Bosanquet, the question has been a divider of 
spirits. It has been perhaps the central interest of oriental 
philosophy. Is reality one or is it many? The defenders of 
the “‘one” are called monists, of the ‘‘many,” pluralists. 

(3) Is THE WoRLD TO BE VIEWED AS ALL OF ONE 
KIND oF BEING, OR Is IT OF Two or More DIFFERENT 
Kinps? If this question be answered, “All of one kind,” 
the answerer is a monist. His monism is, however, a qualix 
tative monism, to be distinguished from the quantitative 
monism mentioned under (2). If the answer be, “Of two 
kinds,” the theory is dualism; if it be, “Of more than two 
kinds,” the answer is qualitative pluralism. 

(4) Is THE WorRLD FRIENDLY OR INDIFFERENT TO THE 
HicHEst VaLuES OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE? This is the 
ultimate question of philosophy. It is for an answer to this 
question that the human being (as distinguished from the 
pure intellect) studies philosophy. He has a right to expect 
some answer from that field of thought which seeks to inter- 
pret reality as a whole. The view that regards the world as 
friendly to values is often called idealism; and the view that 
regards it as indifferent, materialism. This use of terms 
should not be confused with numerous other meanings of 
the same terms. 

These four problems will now be discussed in somewhat 
greater detail. 


IS A WORLD VIEW POSSIBLE? Zh5 


§4. IS A WORLD VIEW POSSIBLE? 


To this question most philosophers would answer in the 
affirmative. They do not mean, as their tone sometimes 
leads the bystander to infer, that they believe that their own 
world view is a final account of all that is, has been, and 
will be. They mean only that it is reasonable to have a 
world view; indeed, that any philosophy which aims at less 
is essentially unreasonable, for it is not facing all the facts 
and problems. Philosophy in general is gnostic, not agnostic; 
it believes that knowledge is possible, that a world view is at 
least progressively attainable. 

A negative answer is, however, given by at least two types 
of philosophy, skepticism and positivism. 

Skepticism denies the possibility of a world view because 
it denies the possibility of all knowledge. Its self-contradic- 
tory character has been discussed in Chapter III, to which 
the reader is referred. 

Positivism also denies the possibility of a world view. 
Positivism is the name given by Auguste Comte to the belief 
that knowledge is confined to sense objects and their laws, 
and hence that knowledge of metaphysical reality is impos- 
sible. There are obvious attractions in this view; but there 
are serious defects in its logic. The existence of conscious 
selves carries us into the realm of the supersensuous. Fur- 
ther, no positivistic veto is adequate to forbid investigation 
of the larger meanings of life. The positivist is interested 
in the facts of sense; so is every thinker. But the facts of 
sense are not all the facts; science, universals, values, per- 
sons, all point to other facts or hypotheses. No standpoint 
can permanently survive if it rest on a demand that we con- 
fine attention to a part of the facts. Positivism is a good 
resting-place for the spirit wearied in its search for truth; 


216 WORLD VIEWS 


but it is only a temporary resting-place. ‘He hath set eter - 
nity in their heart.” Man must strive for a world view, even 
though “‘he cannot find out the work that God hath done from 
the beginning even to the end.” The difficulty of the task 
is only an incentive. 


§5. IS THE WORLD TO BE VIEWED AS ONE 
OR AS MANY? 


(1) Monism (SINGULARISM). The belief that the world 
is one individual being, of which all persons and things, uni- 
versals and values, are parts is called monism. Since the 
term is also employed in other senses, as epistemological 
monism and qualitative monism, some object to its use, and 
James Ward has substituted singularism for this meaning 
of monism. Both terms continue in use. 

If one is a monist, or singularist, in this (quantitative) 
sense, one is expressing an opinion only about the number 
of individuals in the world, not about the kind of individual 
this may be. A singularist must hold that reality is one; 
he may regard it as one vast energy, one complicated mate- 
rial thing or machine, one person, or one unknown and un- 
knowable mystery. As singularist, however, he is interested 
alone in maintaining the unity of being; he does not yet raise 
the question of its quality. 

There are considerations arising from the nature of 
thought that point toward singularism. Truth, logic shows, 
is one coherent and all-inclusive system. Why then is it 
not reasonable to infer that reality, the object to which truth 
refers, of which it is true, must be one coherent and all-inclu- 
sive individual? Further, an examination of the world as 
revealed by experience shows that we must regard it as a 
system. A change anywhere leads to changes elsewhere. 


ONE OR MANY? 217 


Every part affects and is affected by every other part. Our 
world is one interacting system. How, asks the singularist, 
can it be one system unless one and the same individual is 
present in all the parts as cause of their interaction? Reality 
thus comes to be regarded as one all-comprehensive being,— 
the Absolute. The Absolute is all that there is. Nothing 
can exist outside of or apart from it. All being is determined 
by and included in it. 

This sort of argument makes a strong appeal to many 
minds. The type called “tender-minded” by James and 
“introverted” by Jung* is interested in general principles, 
truths, universals, rather than in the concrete objective facts 
that engage the tough-minded extravert. Certain religious 
mystics, also, are attracted by the conception that all is 
one, and they often lose themselves in rapt communion with 
the one ineffable reality in which they and all things live and 
move and have their being. 

(2) Pruratism. The pluralist looks at things very dif- 
ferently from the monist. He holds that reality consists of 
many individuals,—it is hard to say how many—which could 
never be regarded as members of one and the same being. 
The pluralist views the monistic arguments as formal and 
a priori. He is interested in the concrete facts of experience. 
The monist is a rationalist, the pluralist an empiricist. The 
pluralist, therefore, regards every fact, every thing, every 
person, as having its own inalienable being. He may admit 
that there is a certain coherence in reality, but this, he 
thinks, is due to the way the many act. The pluralist is 
often an advocate of freedom of the will; he finds many cen- 
ters of self-determination in the universe. If finite freedom 
be real, it is the functioning of the many, not of the one. 
The pluralist considers himself more open-minded than the 


1 See James, Pragmatism, and Jung, Psychological Types. 


218 WORLD VIEWS 


monist. He follows the facts, in all their variety, wherever 
they lead. The monist, he thinks, is more dogmatic, for he 
insists that all must be one, no matter what the facts are. 

(3) A SYNTHETIC View. When two extreme positions 
come to expression, it is probable that there is some truth 
in each of them, and that the truth will be a synthetic or 
synoptic view. Such a synthesis of monism and pluralism 
is possible. 

There are real difficulties in monism. Singularism does not 
follow logically, as absolutists have supposed, from the coher- 
ence theory of truth, unless epistemological monism can be 
shown to be true. To say that truth is coherent means that 
contradictories cannot both be true, and that there are sys- 
tematic interrelations in reality. Yet there might well be 
interrelations among terms or beings that are not the same 
individual or parts of the same individual. Extreme monism 
leads naturally to the position that every part is completely 
determined by the whole, thus denying any sort of freedom, 
initiative, or novelty in the parts. It leads to what James 
has characterized as a “block universe.” If the one be con- 
ceived religiously as God, there is the difficulty of viewing 
finite sin and evil as a part of God. If it be conceived as a 
self, there is the irreconcilable difference between the point 
of view of the Absolute, which is all-inclusive and all-wise, 
and the point of view of the finite, which is ignorant and lim- 
ited; the question arises, How can the Absolute Self include 
in his life my ignorance and limitation, experienced just as 
I experience it? Extreme monism is therefore unsatisfac- 
tory. 

Extreme pluralism, on the other hand, is not much better 
off. If reality be made up of genuinely independent beings, 
the fact of their relation and interaction is nothing short of 
miraculous. To say that two beings are independent and yet 


ONE OR. MANY? 219 


are related is strangely like a contradiction; and to say that 
if one individual does something, another individual will 
do something sounds like a very precarious prediction, unless 
there is more real connection between them than extreme 
pluralism grants. Yet if science have any validity, reality 
must be regarded as related and interacting. Such consid- 
erations—urged, among others, by Lotze, Royce, and Bowne 
—are not lightly to be cast aside. Extreme pluralism is as 
difficult, as impossible, as is extreme monism. 

The solution of the antinomy in which thought finds itself 
is not to be found in a despairing skepticism, which is too 
often the reaction of a weary mind to a difficult problem. It 
should be found rather in a view that recognizes the truth in 
both monism and pluralism, while avoiding the errors of 
each. 

In some sense there must be one fundamental source of 
being and energy in the universe in order to account for the 
relations and interactions that we find. Yet perhaps in 
physical things and certainly in consciousness there are facts 
that cannot reasonably be fitted into a monistic system. In 
conscious life there seems to be a unique individuality that 
no one else can experience or possess as I possess it; not 
even an Absolute Mind can include me, just as I am, as part 
of itself. Hence the truth in pluralism must be recognized, 
as well as the truth in monism. 

The view that seems best to meet these conditions is the 
standpoint of personalism,* Personalism faces the facts with 
the hypothesis that the unity of the universe is due to one 
Supreme Person or Mind, so that all the laws of nature, the 
relations and interactions of things and persons are dependent 
on his will and purpose. If unity be conceived as the 


1 Sometimes called theistic monism, because it holds that the unity of - 
the universe is to be found in God. 


220 WORLD VIEWS 


expression of mind, such unity is compatible with as much 
difference and plurality as mind is capable of. It is also 
compatible with the existence of separate finite persons, 
whose being is not part of the Supreme Person, but whose 
separate and relatively independent existence depends on the 
purpose of the Supreme Person. 

It appears that any other attempt to solve the problem of 
the One and the Many involves a surrender either of the 
unity or of the plurality of our world of rational experience. 
We have—apart from personalism—either a block universe 
or a sawdust universe. Monism surrenders to the claims of 
thought, pluralism to the claims of experience; personalism 
enlists both thought and experience in its ranks. 

Even so, some cautious mind may reply, Personalism may 
not be true. Perhaps it is the best solution we can think 
of at the moment. There may be a better one just around 
the corner. Such caution is valuable if it be an incentive 
to more thorough and circumspect thinking; but if it be 
used to paralyze thought and bring the mind to a standstill, 
it is insidious and worse than useless. The present argu- 
ment should not, then, be regarded as final; but it should 
be tested in the light of thought about other aspects of experi- 
ence. 


$6. IS THE WORLD ALL OF ONE KIND OF 
BEING, OR IS IT OF TWO OR MORE 
DIFFERENT KINDS? 


The problem about the kind of being, substance, or stuff 
of which reality is composed is an ancient and fundamental 
one. It may be answered in any one of three different ways 
(already defined),—the monistic, the dualistic, and the 
pluralistic. 


KINDS OF BEING 221 


In seeking an answer to the problem about the quality of 
being, we cannot take the testimony of experience as decisive; 
nor can we take abstract reasoning as authoritative. 
Thought about experience as a whole is the final court of 
appeal. Philosophy is neither dumb experience nor specula- 
tive fancy; it is rational interpretation of the facts. Appear- 
ances are all in favor of qualitative pluralism; but thought 
finds law and unity behind the differences of what appears. 
It seeks to understand the reality of which appearances are 
only a fragmentary glimpse, the noumenon that is implied 
by the phenomenon. 

If thought is the final criterion, things look better for 
monism. The tendency of science and philosophy is to 
oppose to the pluralism of experience the monism of thought. 
The aim of scientific thought is to reduce the apparent 
qualitative differences to a common denominator, so that 
quantitative comparisons may be made. Philosophy as a 
unified world view also tends greatly to reduce the apparent 
qualitative differences. Thales interpreted all of nature as 
being various forms of water; and to-day philosophy often 
regards reality as consisting of one kind of being only, such 
as energy or mind. Nevertheless, not all philosophy has 
followed the monistic highway. 

(1) Pruratism. Many thinkers have been so impressed 
by the differences among the objects found in experience that 
they have given up hope of trying to explain them as mani- 
festations of any one kind of being. Among the ancients, 
Anaxagoras held that there was an infinite variety of ele- 
ments. Yet after he had thus separated and dissected the 
living whole, he found it necessary to devise some way of 
bringing the parts together again; and so he proposed Nous 
or Reason as the governing and unifying power. He was 
not a pure pluralist, for he held that all the qualitative 


222 WORLD VIEWS 


differences became significant only in relation to the Nous, 
which is qualitatively one, namely Reason. 

Other thinkers have been more purely pluralistic. Modern 
pragmatism as expounded by William James in A Pluralistic 
Universe is as pluralistic as could be desired. ‘“The world,” 
it exclaims, “is so full of a number of things” that there is 
little for thought to do but to take the census. How can we 
say that colors and sounds, numbers and murders, cabbages 
and kings, are really forms of one underlying quality of some 
sort? The kinds of experience are indescribably many. 
There are relations among the different kinds, it is true. 
Yet no yearning for an ideal of unity or uniformity warrants 
us in saying ‘‘Like, like’ when there is no likeness. Dif- 
ference is the patent fact of experience. Hence many cling 
to pluralism, because they regard it as nearer to the facts 
and less speculative than monism. 

(2) Duatism. Others follow more closely the guidance 
of the methods of science. They hold that the apparent dif- 
ferences are actually reduced successfully to different com- 
binations of like elements. Biology does it with the cell as a 
unit; chemistry and physics together lead from atom to elec- 
tron. The whole tendency is toward final qualitative like- 
ness. But, as Descartes pointed out, there is one differ- 
ence that it is very hard to reduce, namely, the difference 
between mind and matter. Mind we conceive as conscious 
experience; matter as something solid, moving in space. 
The properties and laws of mind and of matter are utterly 
different. Hence, Descartes and those that agree with him 
have held that mind and matter were irreducible; and that 
the world is made up of two ultimately different kinds of 
reality. Descartes, it is true, had an uneasy feeling about 
this situation, for it rendered interaction between mind and 
matter unintelligible to him. He evaded the difficulty by 


KINDS OF BEING 223 


locating the seat of the interaction in the pineal gland. His 
uneasiness is also expressed by his doctrine that body and 
mind, although distinct, are relative substances which depend 
on God, the only absolute substance. Hence, in the end, 
his dualism is surrendered and he becomes a theistic monist; 
mind is the ultimate quality in his universe, after all. In the 
form in which Descartes leaves the problem, his solution is 
not satisfactory. The relation between mind and body is left 
a puzzle that is solved only by an arbitrary appeal to God. 

(3) Monism. As was said at the outset of this discus- 
sion, the tendency of thought is toward monism. If we take 
the problem as set by dualism, it may be solved in one of 
three ways. Perhaps the one quality of reality is “neutral,” 
neither mind nor matter, but something more ultimate than 
either. If this neutral quality be regarded as something 
unknown, then the theory would be called agnostic realism,— 
a view that does little to interpret our experience. If it be 
regarded as “subsistence,” and discovered in the analysis of 
experience, then we have the neutral entities of American 
new realism, which are impersonal and immaterial abstract 
concepts. 

Again, it may be that mind is a form or expression of 
matter, and that all reality has only material qualities. 
This view is naturalism, the ground taken by behaviorisrn 
and other materialistic views. 

Finally, it may be that matter is a form or expression of 
mind. This is the position of idealists, whether they incline 
toward absolutism or toward a more pluralistic personalism. 
Idealism holds that the dualism of matter and mind is in- 
coherent and impossible; that the ‘neutral’? way out is an 
attempt to explain the real and concrete in terms of abstract 
concepts which, after all, are relative to the purposes of 
minds; and that the materialistic solution not only flies in the 


224 WORLD VIEWS 


face of consciousness but is ultimately self-contradictory.* It 
argues that what we mean by matter is adequately described 
by a theory that regards it as the functioning of the rational 
will of a Supreme Mind; no property of matter is thus denied 
or evaded. What science calls electricity, philosophy calls 
the actual conscious will of God. Extension, solidity, laws, 
are the rational experience of the Supreme Person, the active 
energizing of his will. We know what space is for conscious 
experience, and that (idealism maintains) is just what 
space really is,—space experience. The unity of real space 
is the unity of the Supreme Mind that is expressing itself 
under the space form. This view of matter as the purposive 
functioning of the Supreme Mind solves the problems of 
dualism, makes interaction between mind and body reason- 
able, and unifies our view of the cosmos. ‘The case for 
idealism is strong. Further examination of evidence for 
and against idealism will occur later in this chapter. 


eh IS THE WORLD FRIENDLY OR INDIFFERENT 
TO THE HIGHEST VALUES? 


The question about the fate of values not only most 
frequently drives men to philosophy; it also, unfortunately, 
drives men away from it. The philosopher should heed the 
poet’s words, 


“Hold thou the good: define it well: 
For fear divine Philosophy 
Should push beyond her mark and be 
Procuress to the Lords of Hell.” 


1 Some of the chief reasons for this statement appear in $9 of this 
chapter and in Chapters VIII and IX. See also M. W. Calkins, “The 
Personalistic Conception of Nature,” Phil. Rev., 28 (1919), 115-146. 


THE HIGHEST VALUES Pras he 


The philosopher has no more serious mission than to tell 
the truth, as he sees it, about the value of life. In Chapter 
V the general problem has been discussed. Here it is intended 
only to show the attitude of different world views toward the 
problem. 

It is interesting that, while some philosophers hold that 
the world is friendly to values, and others that it is indif- 
ferent, none regard reality as malevolently hostile to value. 
There is much pessimism, but it is based on the indifference 
of nature to man. Theisms and atheisms there are, but no 
diabolism. Perhaps this is due to the unwillingness of man 
to regard himself as the object of eternal and infinite hatred. 
Is it not truer to say that the absence of diabolism from 
philosophy is fairly good proof that the view is too irrational 
to be worthy of serious consideration? Our choice, then, 
lies between an indifferent and a friendly cosmos. 

(1) THE Wortp AS INDIFFERENT TO VALUE. Skepti- 
cal and positivistic philosophies hold that, so far as we 
know, the world is indifferent to value. These philosophies, 
indeed, are themselves usually indifferent to the very prob- 
lem. 

Naturalism denies that mind is more than a temporary 
grouping of matter, and since value belongs to persons, nat- 
uralism regards value as a temporary material product. 
The universe is as careless of values as the ocean of the fate 
of the waves on its surface. A materialist may be a gentle- 
man of honor and high personal ideals; but if he is, he has 
to regard himself as superior to the universe that gave him 
birth. His goodness and all human ideals and aspirations 
are a meteor’s flash in the eternal darkness of space, or a 
fragile beauty that grows out of earth and returns unbeauti- 
ful to earth again. 

Many types of realism that are not (or do not wish to 


226 WORLD VIEWS 


be considered) strictly materialistic are equally despairing 
about the cosmic fate of values. The new realism, says 
Perry, is a philosophy of disillusionment. If experience can 
be analyzed into neutral entities in relation, our spiritual 
life should be nurtured by no vain dreams of real and eternal 
value. There is as much value as we can find or can make; 
but man is only deceiving himself if he projects his ideals 
into reality and asserts that the universe cares about them. 

Indeed, many realists feel that the value of life is greater 
if the universe be regarded as indifferent to value. They 
argue that if it be friendly, reality must be already perfect. 
All incentive to achievement thus disappears. But if it be 
indifferent, all value would depend on human effort, and the 
incentive to effort would then be incalculable. This position, 
however, rests on the assumption that a universe friendly to 
value is one which is eternally and changelessly perfect, a 
block-universe. Against views that make this assumption, 
realism is probably a wholesome protest. It may be, how- 
ever, that the religions of redemption have a contribution to 
make at this point. They hold that change, improvement, 
redemption, are genuinely possible; but that they would not 
be possible unless the universe were friendly. For these 
religions, and for some philosophies, the goodness of the uni- 
verse consists in no completed perfection, but rather in 
perfectibility. A living universe, they hold, is more perfect 
than a perfected universe that can grow no more. Friendli- 
ness to value may mean friendliness to development. 

Any view that holds that man may fight his way step by 
step to the heights in a reality that is fundamentally indif- 
ferent to his struggle would make a great appeal to man’s 
heroism or at least to his pugnacity; but it would suf- 
fer from the intellectual defect of making human values 
and ideals a far more miraculous and meaningless thing 


THE HIGHEST VALUES 227 


than a view that sees in values some clew to what really is. 

(2) Tort Wortp As FRIENDLY TO VALUE. One of the 
persistent facts about the development of thought is that 
what philosophers throw out of the door often comes back in 
through the window. ‘The idea that the universe is friendly 
to value is such a persistent belief that it creeps into world 
views where it is in strange company. 

A thorough-going empirical realism, for example, might 
be expected efficiently to exclude this belief. Yet there are 
few realists from whose thinking it has been wholly shut 
out. Two illustrations make clear what is meant. Ehrenfels, 
the distinguished Austrian specialist on values, is thoroughly 
realistic. But Ehrenfels concludes from his study of value 
—his grounds need not now concern us—that our value- 
experience presupposes the validity of belief in “the eter- 
nity of the psychic” * as the metaphysical minimum. He 
means that no thoughtful person could regard value as 
really worth striving for if all value were ultimately to perish. 
Hence, while he is not inclined to believe in God or in per- 
sonal immortality, he feels that he must believe that con- 
sciousness and its values will forever continue to be developed 
in the universe. In this case, admission of a certain friend- 
liness of the universe to values is extorted by experience from 
unwilling lips. 

A second instance of the same fact is found in the neo- 
realism of Professor R. B. Perry. Professor Perry’s philos- 
ophy of disillusionment rejects to the end many of the famil- 
iar beliefs of philosophy and religion about a friendly super- 
human power. It stoutly “repudiates every moral and spir- 
itual ontology.” ? Yet when this philosophy looks ahead te 
the cosmic future, it refuses to be bound by “the narrow and 


1 Ehrenfels, System der Werththeorie, II, 173. 
2R. B. Perry, Present Philosophical Tendencies, pp. 344 ff. 


228 WORLD VIEWS 


abstract predictions of astronomy” and greets ‘‘the residual 
cosmos” as ‘“‘a promise of salvation.” This assuredly does 
not mean that man can overthrow the laws of astronomy. It 
is the cosmos itself that may, after all, turn out to be friendly. 
It would be easy to criticize this ontology that is not and is 
spiritual; the point that concerns us especially is rather the 
fact that an optimistic metaphysics crushed to earth will rise 
again. 
Philosophers find themselves puzzled by this phenomenon. 
A large group of earnest thinkers regard it as the collapse 
of thought. These thinkers hold that man is unable to 
endure his utter insignificance in the cosmos; and, although 
all his thinking logically implies that reality is impersonal 
and neutral to value, he nevertheless takes refuge in the 
skeptical hope that there may be a defect in his thinking, 
and perhaps, after all, personality and its values are an object 
of concern to the Mysterious Real. Desire celebrates a 
triumph over reason. The thinkers of whom we are speak- 
ing hold that if we permit reason to triumph over desire, 
the outcome will be some form of naturalism or realism. 
Another large group takes a very different position. This 
group holds that the view of reality as indifferent to value 
can be developed logically only if one start with an abstract 
and incomplete view of what is real. If a thinker admit to 
his philosophical sanctum sanctorum only the data of sense 
and the methods of analytic logic and mathematics, he will 
never come out of the sanctum with more than he took in. 
If one begin with a fragment of experience, one cannot con- © 
struct out of it alone a view of the whole. When such 
a thinker finds himself appalled by his conclusions and has 
recourse to some metaphysical minimum or residual cosmos, 
he is, indeed, in a state of logical incoherence; for his prem- 
ises do not justify his conclusion. If, however, one should 


SUMMARY 229 


seek from the start to take account of all experience, to give 
each aspect its due weight, to use synoptic as well as analytic 
method, then from the start persons and values will have a 
logical status, and the inference to a friendly universe in- 
volves no logical break and no collapse of thought. The 
group that favors this synoptic procedure consists mostly of 
idealists. It must be noted, however, that some idealists, like 
Schopenhauer, belong to the other group; and that some real- 
ists, like Spaulding, believe in the objectivity of value and 
belong in this group. 

On this issue the absolute idealists and the personal ideal- 
ists are at one. They agree that the elements into which we 
analyze experience are finally to be explained in terms of 
the wholes to which they belong; that, in general, the lower 
is to be explained in terms of the higher, not the higher in 
terms of the lower. Without a synoptic logic of coherence, 
and the hypothesis that the universe is friendly to our ideals, 
the ideal of truth, as well as the ideals of goodness and 
beauty and holiness, become subjective fictions,* and thought 
is impotent to grasp reality. If the universe be friendly to 
one of our ideals, that of truth, it is reasonable at least to 
consider the possibility of its being friendly to our other 
ideals. 

Whatever the outcome of the debate between the two 
schools of thought, the theoretical and practical importance 
of the problem can hardly be exaggerated. The one (intel- 
lectually intolerable attitude is to ignore the problem. 


§ 8. SUMMARY: THE FUNDAMENTAL ISSUES 


The discussion of the chapter up to the present time may 
be summarized as follows. There are two fundamental issues 
1See Vaihinger, Die Philosophie des Als Ob. 


230 WORLD VIEWS 


that concern our world view most profoundly: the issue of 
skepticism vs. knowledge and the issue of realism vs. ideal- 
ism. There are many other important problems; but these 
appear to be most crucial. 

(1) SKEPTICISM vs. KNOWLEDGE. The first of the two 
issues has been discussed at sufficient length, and reference 
may be made to our previous treatment of it. The outcome 
may be expressed in a few words by saying that the complete 
denial of knowledge cannot be maintained consistently by 
any mind; and that any consistent thinking whatever must 
treat some knowledge as actual and more as possible. 

(2) Reatism vs. IpEAtIsm. The other fundamental is~ 
sue is that between realism and idealism. This issue has 
emerged in connection with most of the questions discussed 
in this book, and is one of the most persistent problems of 
the history of philosophy. It is also one of the most diffi- 
cult to define accurately and clearly. 

For the purposes of this chapter it will be necessary to 
agree On some use of terms, and it 1s admitted in advance 
that a degree of arbitrariness will attach to the definitions. 
They will not do justice by all realisms and by all idealisms. 
In particular the definitions will have to do only with the 
metaphysical question and will leave out of account the 
epistemological use of the terms. 

Realism, then, may be defined as the world view that 
regards reality as extra-mental. That is, it holds to the 
hypothesis that physical things and perhaps also universals 
and values are entities other than and foreign to any mind, 
human or divine. The true being or source of being in the 
universe for realism is not consciousness, but something other 
than consciousness. For realism, in the last analysis, mind is 
the product of what is not mind; consciousness of the not- 
conscious; just as the fragrance of the flower appears to be 


REALISM 231 


the product of what is not fragrant and its beauty the product 
of what is not beautiful. 

Idealism, on the other hand, holds that mind is the most 
real and irreducible fact revealed in experience. It holds 
that all reality—physical things, universals and values, and 
consciousness—are, in the last analysis, forms, or activities, 
or expressions, or deeds of mind. Idealism does not mean 
that everything exists only in and for the individual or 
social human mind, and it does not dream of denying that 
physical things, universals, and values exist. It does, how- 
ever, assert that the existence of nature and of all validity 
and value can be maintained reasonably and without con- 
tradiction only on the hypothesis that there is a Supreme or 
Divine Mind for and through whom the universal order 
exists, and who is being gradually apprehended by finite 
minds as knowledge increases and experience deepens. 

Neither realism nor idealism can be proved or refuted by 
an appeal to experience as it comes. Each theory is an 
hypothesis, and the choice between them must be decided by 
thought, not by experience alone,—much less by prejudice. 
It would appear that, broadly speaking, every thinker must 
choose one or the other of these two positions; for mind 
either is or is not the ultimate explanation of the universe. 


§9. REALISM 


The realistic world view may take either one of two 
forms. It regards reality as non-mental; it may interpret 
everything in terms of matter and its laws or in terms of 
what is neither mind nor matter. The first form of realism 
may be called materialism or naturalism; the second form 
is that adopted by neo-realism. 

(rt) MaTERIALISTIC OR NATURALISTIC REALISM. (a) 


232 WORLD VIEWS 


Arguments for Naturalism. ‘The view that all experience can 
be interpreted as some form of physical reality has in its 
favor, first of all, the fact that physical objects bulk so large 
in our experience. Indeed, it would seem that all our 
thoughts, no matter how refined, have some relations to 
physical things and are somehow derived either from the 
hings themselves or from our conceptions of them. As Hume 
taught, so it appears: “ideas” are all derived from “impres- 
sions” of sense. 

The sciences appear to justify the verdict of experience. 
They deal with “matter” and its motion; and using no other 
fundamental units, they explain the facts of astronomy and 
physics, chemistry and biology. The electron itself is a tiny 
grain of “matter,” and the marvelous life-cell is “matter” 
moving, however intricately it may move. The inference 
seems near that if everything else can be explained in terms 
of matter and its laws consciousness will be. Physiological 
psychology shows detailed dependence of mind on brain; and 
metaphysical behaviorism is at least a hypothetical reduction 
of all mind to the motion of matter. 

Naturalism is, further, a unified system. It reduces all 
reality to one kind of being and formulates the laws of that 
being mathematically. The success of this unification is 
proved by the predictions which science is able to make with 
detailed accuracy. While these predictions cannot yet be 
made in every field, the naturalist feels justified in hoping 
that his past successes will be indefinitely extended in the 
future. 

(b) Arguments Against Naturalism. As has been pointed 
out in previous discussion, the method of naturalism is purely 
analytic, and hence is adapted to discover abstract aspects 
of truth, but not the truth about our experienced world as 
a whole. 


REALISM 233 


For analytic and mathematical purposes, the concept of 
matter, on which the whole scheme of materialism is built, is 
useful; but it is very difficult, if not impossible, to define 
what matter really is. Suppose we say that matter is solid, 
has mass, is extended in space, moves in space; we have of 
course used terms derived wholly from our conscious experi- 
ence, and our belief in matter derives its validity from a 
prior belief in the trustworthiness of our minds. The belief 
in matter thus drives us back to belief in mind as the basic 
certainty. 

The belief in matter is no intelligible explanation of the 
facts. Matter may be said to be solid, extended in space. 
What is there about this concept to make the motion of 
matter intelligible? Why should mere solidity move? Why 
should the impact of one solid electron on another (or on its 
vicinity ) result in the motion of another electron? In short, 
what is there about matter as defined to explain its proper- 
ties as observed? There is no doubt about the laws of 
“matter”; there is no doubt about the fact that in dealing 
with physical things we are dealing with something real; 
but there is a great deal of doubt about whether the concept 
of matter is an intelligible explanation of the order of the 
universe. The order of the universe is there; and philosophy 
seeks for some conception that will interpret that order. 
“Matter” as defined fails to satisfy reason; there is no 
adequate connection between matter and its properties. 

Naturalism is conspicuously inadequate to explain the 
facts of consciousness. Every one will admit that the predic- 
tive powers of science have not yet reached the stage where 
anybody’s moods or the evening’s plans may be predicted 
with any accuracy. The materialist might reply that the 
weather is only relatively predictable but that it is none 
the less material. The critic of naturalism would indeed err 


234 WORLD VIEWS 


if he were to rest his case on the issue of predictability. The 
real failure of naturalism lies in its incapacity to include the 
facts of consciousness, which were discussed in Chapter VI. 
Consciousness fills no space and cannot move in space, al- 
though it affects and is affected by ‘matter’; there is noth- 
ing in matter or its properties that can express what we mean 
by reason or purpose, choice or hope, value or self-experience. 
The naturalist must either deny the facts of introspection 
(and sometimes he will go to this extent) or he must radically 
modify his naturalism. Naturalism, then, rests on selected 
facts; it is an attempt to explain the whole of experience, 
including mind, in terms of a part, namely, a certain class 
of the objects of experience. It is true that any explanation 
must start somewhere, but an explanation cannot pretend to 
be all-inclusive if it omits some of the facts to be explained. 

(2) Nro-Reatism. By neo-realism, in this connection, 
is meant the analytic or neutral realism advocated by cer- 
tain Americans, and recently favored by Russell. It explains 
all reality in terms of neutral entities and their relations. 
These entities are of the nature of universals. The theory 
is a type of modern Platonism. 

(a) Arguments for Neo-Realism. ‘This philosophy, 4s 
well as materialism, is based on science. It has, however, a 
wider and more secure foundation; for materialism takes 
the science of physics as its model, while neo-realism seeks 
for the logic expressed in all the sciences. This it finds to be 
the mathematical logic of analysis. The “complete” analysis 
of the new realism shows naturalism to be an incomplete 
analysis, and believes that it can do likewise by idealism. 
It penetrates beyond the concepts both of matter and of 
mind to the common terms and relations that underlie both. 

Like materialism, also, it may lay claim to being a unified 
account of experience. 


REALISM 235 


Neo-realism believes that it has made great advance in 
its solution of the epistemological problem. Its form of 
epistemological monism (panobjectivism) seems to synthesize 
dualism (that the object is independent of its being known) 
with idealistic monism (that idea and object are one). For 
an evaluation of the issues here involved the reader is re- 
ferred to Chapter III. 

(b) Arguments Against Neo-Realism. ‘The new realism 
is even more obviously analytic in method than was mate- 
rialism, and is even more obviously opposed to the synoptic 
method which it calls the organic theory of truth. It would 
be most instructive for the student to go through The New 
Realism volume, bearing in mind the distinction between 
analytic and synoptic method." It is conceded on all sides 
that if the synoptic method be sound, the realistic analysis 
is not the last word of philosophy. 

While less unintelligible than “matter,”’ the neutral enti- 
ties of new realism fail almost as completely as do matter 
and motion to interpret our experience. After the blows 
of the analyst have crushed the universe into neutral atomic 
dust, what is there in simple terms like “point,” “instant” 
and the like to explain the teeming life of a universe? If 
the world is made up of unchanging terms, how do relations 
happen to change? How can there be interaction between 
these simple, changeless, neutral terms and their obviously 
changing relations? Or, to raise a different sort of question, 
even if we freely grant that the objects of consciousness may 
be analyzed, how can neutral entities explain the introspec- 
tive facts of self-experience and of feeling? Satisfactory 
answers to these questions have yet to be given by any neo- 
realist. 


1 Professor Spaulding’s Defense of Analysis and the Appendix are 
particularly recommended for this purpose. 


236 WORLD VIEWS 


Finally, it must be pointed out that the neutral terms to 
which the universe is reduced by this system are abstract 
universals, and all that was said against medieval realism in 
Chapter IV applies here. Whatever truth there is in nominal- 
ism is an argument against the new realism as well as against 
its scholastic form. Universals do not exist, or even sub- 
sist, in any neutral realm of being; their subsistence is simply 
their validity for thought. Neo-realism severs the “validity” 
from the “thought” and then seeks to explain the thought 
in terms of the validity; as though the roundness of my 
watch were to be considered apart from the watch and then 
used to explain its existence! 


§10. IDEALISM 


Materialism models its universe on physical things; the 
new realism on universals; idealism on consciousness. The 
realisms of modern thought have arisen as a protest against 
idealism, and idealism therefore suffers from being regarded 
as old-fashioned. If one cares a great deal about the latest 
styles in thinking, one may pretend to an interest in ideal- 
ism only on the plea that one is a collector of antiques. The 
whole idealistic position is dismissed by many a mind in the 
making on the ground that it recognizes certain values that 
were believed in more than a hundred, nay, more than a 
thousand, years ago. There is danger in supposing that 
fashion is decisive, and hence not looking thoroughly into the 
merits of the case nor becoming aware of the current strength 
of the idealistic movement in philosophy beyond the range 
of one’s provincial interests. 

As has already been said, idealism is the belief that mind 
or consciousness is the truly real, and that everything exists 
only in relation to mind. In examining this view, certain 


IDEALISM 237 


preliminary considerations will be first presented, and then 
the two main types of idealism will be briefly discussed. 

Idealism appears to be strong where realism is weakest. 
Realism has been analytic in its method, and has tended to 
ignore or to deny the properties of wholes that are not to be 
understood in terms of the parts and their relations. One 
of the most important of such wholes that we meet in experi- 
ence is the mind. Realism has always tended to explain the 
mind away; to deny or to minimize its peculiar qualities; to 
regard it as wholly a product of causes which do not have 
the property of consciousness or self-experience. The 
synoptic method of idealism and its recognition of mind 
as the clew to reality free it from the narrowness of realism. 
At this point, at least, idealism is, in the non-technical sense, 
more realistic than realism; for it takes into account realities 
that professional realism has pushed into the background. 

It is, however, said by realists that idealism is weak where 
realism is strong, namely, in the full recognition of the facts 
of physical nature. Some go so far as to say that the exist- 
ence of physical nature refutes idealism. ‘This assertion, 
however, rests on a sheer misapprehension of the idealist 
position. Idealism in none of its historic forms has ever 
denied the existence of physical things or of the order of 
nature. It has merely asserted a particular theory about 
physical things,—the theory, namely, that things are not, in 
their inner nature and cause, mere lumps of moving solids, 
but that all the space and energy, solidity and motion, of mat- 
ter is the functioning of some mind. No idealists have be- 
lieved that each physical thing that we see had a “‘mind” of 
its own; some few, however, have held that nature was the 
expression of many minds (monads, as Leibniz called them) ; 
others, that only one mind, that of the Supreme Being, was 
manifesting itself in nature. No philosophical idealist, cer- 


238 WORLD VIEWS 


tainly none in the Occident, has ever meant to look at 
physical things and say that there is nothing there. Indeed, 
to look at them and to say, “God is there,”’ as many idealists 
do, is far from denying reality to nature; it imputes to nature 
a more significant reality than realism knows of. 

The view that idealism denies nature or that the exist- 
ence of nature refutes idealism is, therefore, false and unjust 
in the extreme. Samuel Johnson, “striking his foot with 
mighty force against a large stone until he rebounded from 
it” and exclaiming, “I refute it thus’ may be, as Boswell 
says, “a stout exemplification of the first truths of Pére 
Bouffier,’—but he is no refutation of idealism.* 

Nevertheless the objection to idealism that we are consid- 
ering has in it a germ of truth. It has been too often the 
case that idealists have had a zeal for the eternal values 
that was not according to knowledge of the temporal facts; 
that they have been so concerned to save their own soul 
that they have lost the whole world, and that the resultant 
theory has borne the aspect of a noble aspiration and a 
lofty devotion to value rather than that of a faithful inter- 
pretation of the facts of experience. Aspirations and devo- 
tions are, however, unenlightening unless they are defined, 
justified, related to the whole of experience. In other words, 
referring to the classification of methods in Chapter I, it may 
be said that the synoptic method of idealism is in peril of 
slipping into romanticism and of losing its grip on scientific 
and rational thinking. Rather should it be said that some 
idealists are in this peril; for there is nothing in the logic 
of idealism to sanction such excesses. On the contrary, 
idealism has always been a philosophy of nature as well as 
a philosophy of spirit and has derived many of its argu- 


1 Boswell, Life of Johnson. Globe ed., p. 162. 
2 This phrase is one of Professor W. G. Everett’s. 


IDEALISM 239 


ments from a consideration of material objects and the results 
of the sciences. 

There is a marked tendency among current philosophical 
critics * to discredit idealism in advance by branding it as 
merely wishful thinking. Man longs for a beautiful and good 
universe, and idealism, such critics say, finds a more or less 
plausible expression for that wish. Idealism, then, is not a 
theory of reality, but a Freudian dream; not the naked truth 
about what is, but a lovely veil of hope cast over the cruel 
facts. 

This sort of criticism is peculiarly subtle and, like any 
sneer, hard to refute. It does not seem to be fair play in 
argument to discount in advance everything that an idealist 
will say on the ground that it is, consciously or unconsciously, 
influenced by ulterior motives. The question of ulterior 
motive, after all, has nothing to do with the question of truth. 
Whatever my suppressed desires, my obsessions, may be, if 
I say that there are other persons or that it is a cool day, 
my statements cannot be refuted by a reference to the fact 
that I am abnormal, or that I like other persons and cool 
days. If what I say can be shown to be absurd, my mental 
derangement will serve as an explanation of my absurdity. 
But my mental derangement cannot be used (even if its 
presence be proved) to demonstrate that all of my beliefs 
are absurd. When the idealist is “refuted” by being told 
that he is unbalanced, he may be tempted to impute to his 
critic the principle of ‘‘No case, abuse the plaintifi’s attor- 
ney.” 

It may be worth while, nevertheless, to consider whether 
there is any substantial truth in the charge. Are idealists 
in any special and maleficent sense led by their desires to 


1 Men like Santayana, Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, and R. B. Perry 
are here meant. 


240 WORLD VIEWS 


their conclusions? Desire is, in some degree, necessarily 
present in all thinking. Without desire to solve the prob- 
lem, no problem has ever been solved. All reasoning is 
purposive. It is doubtless true that idealists have often been 
moved by an earnest desire to interpret the value and mean- 
ing of human life, the place and validity of moral, religious, 
intellectual, and esthetic experience. Doubtless also they 
have hoped that these values may be found to be more 
than merely subjective experience. If it is unphilosophical, 
romantic, and abnormal to indulge this hope, one must say 
that most philosophers and most serious persons of every con- 
dition in life have been unphilosophical, romantic, and ab- 
normal. 

The influence of such hope on philosophy would be per- 
nicious if it led to an easy-going view of reality, evasion 
of fact or obligation, or belief that our wishes are to find 
fulfillment irrespective of the facts. Actually we find the 
contrary. Idealists have taken the position that fact, and 
all fact, should be faced; the fact of value experience, as 
well as the fact of physical experience, the fact of mind as 
well as the fact of matter. If some fanatical extremists have 
seen only things celestial, the idealist has himself been the 
first to say to them, “Why stand ye there looking into 
heaven?” On the other hand, the idealist has regarded the 
realist as the man with the muck rake, whose zeal for fact 
has led him to ignore the best facts. At any rate, idealism 
cannot be charged with choosing the easier way. The net 
philosophical outcome of realism tends to be a sense of 
cosmic weariness that easily lends itself to a relaxation of 
the sterner virtues and the nobler ideals of life or divides 
life into hopelessly separated realms of what is real and 
what is ideal. Idealism, on the other hand, weds the eternal 
and the practical, binds the human person to rigorous eternal 


IDEALISM 241 


values, sets him on a career, both theoretical and practical, 
that is not merely more inspiring but is also more arduous 
and imperative than the career of the realist. If the realist 
acts as if the eternal values had a real claim on human life, 
as the finer realistic spirits have always done, he is thus 
bearing mute testimony to the reality of those values that 
his metaphysics would ignore. 

Idealism, then, cannot be disposed of as a pleasing, self- 
indulgent wish. 

Thus far we have been speaking as though idealism were 
one definite system. Itis not. There are numerous forms of 
idealism, but they all agree in deriving their view of the 
universe from mind. Some (like Berkeley, Lotze, Royce, 
Bowne, etc.) lay stress on conscious personality. In so 
far as consciousness is made essential to reality, the view has 
recently been called mentalism. Consciousness is not the 
only trait of mind; it also seeks ends, attains goals. Some 
idealists, like Plato, Bosanquet and William Stern, appear 
to abstract from consciousness and fasten on this tele- 
ological aspect of mind as the one supreme key to real- 
ity. 

Another type of distinction among idealists is also of 
theoretical importance. Unfortunately, our terminology Is 
defective here, and objections may be raised to almost any 
pair of names used to designate the two views in question. 
The problem is whether reality is only one mind or is a 
group or society of minds. One might naturally say that 
the former is monistic and the latter pluralistic idealism. 
This nomenclature is unhappy, for the reason that the word 
pluralism implies that the many are eternally self-dependent. 
Personalistic theism, however, while refusing to view the 
many persons as part of the one Supreme Person, neverthe- 
less regards their existence as dependent on his purpose. 


242 WORLD VIEWS 


Hence this view is neither monistic nor pluralistic. Or, the 
two types might be called pantheistic and theistic. Objec- 
tion, however, could easily be raised to these terms. Pan- 
theism usually connotes an impersonal totality, while the 
view that all is one mind may well regard that mind as a 
person. Further, the view that there are many minds is 
logically compatible with the denial of a God, as is evi- 
denced by McTaggart’s philosophy. 

Since any terminology (save an arbitrary novelty in- 
vented ad hoc) is objectionable we must either get along 
without words, which no philosopher could think of doing, 
or use recognized terminology in an admittedly inadequate 
manner. Adopting the latter course, the following discus- 
sion will speak of absolute (or absolutistic) and personal (or 
personalistic) idealism. By absolute idealism will be meant 
the view that reality is one single mind or one unified 
teleological system; this view may, and often does, hold that 
reality is one self or person, so that there is a personalistic 
absolutism. By personal idealism, or personalism, will be 
meant the view that only persons are real and that there are 
many persons in the universe. For the sake of brevity, only 
the theistic form of personalism will be considered in this 
chapter. 

(1) ABSOLUTE IpEALIsM. In view of the fact that this 
Iniroduction as a whole defends the general idealistic stand- 
point, and personalism in particular, it does not appear 
necessary to go into the arguments for and against the dif- 
ferent types of idealism at great length. A very brief and 
admittedly incomplete sketch will, therefore, be all the pres- 
ent chapter aims at. 

(a) Arguments for Absolute Idealism. In other sections 
of this and other chapters the main arguments against mate- 


IDEALISM 243 


rialistic and realistic views have been given. These con- 
stitute a negative argument in favor of idealism in general. 
The chief positive arguments for absolutism follow. 

The coherence account of truth implies that, as truth is 
one coherent system, so reality must be one coherent system. 
The world as I experience it is fragmentary, disordered, 
meaningless. My own personality is intermittent and in- 
complete. Everything that I experience must be interpreted 
and related to a logical ideal if it is to be understood; and 
that ideal is coherence. Truth then, is one organic whole. 
Nothing could be regarded as independent of the whole 
without impairing the logical unity of the system. Only a 
mind, it is argued, could be such an individual whole as 
our logical ideal requires that reality shall be. Hence the 
universe is one all-inclusive, all-explaining, wholly rational 
mind. 

For its complete vindication, absolutism must also appeal 
to the doctrine about knowledge that was discussed in Chap- 
ter III as epistemological monism. ‘The absolutist admits 
that there appears to be a duality of idea and object in our 
ordinary knowledge; my idea and the thing or thought or 
principle to which it refers appear to be distinct. But this 
apparent dualism is said to be due to the defect of finite 
knowledge. The completely coherent truth must leave no 
reality outside as its object; it must include everything, idea 
and object, selves and things, in one experience. Further, 
the absolutist argues, the example of self-experience shows 
that the most certain and intimate knowledge is monistic. 
My self and my self-experience are not two different facts, 
but are identical. Thus, it is argued, the Absolute Self and 
its self-experience are one and the same fact; and that fact 
is the whole universe of reality. 


244 WORLD VIEWS 


“They reckon ill who leave me out; 
When me they fly, I am the wings; 
I am the doubter and the doubt, 
And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.” * 


(b) Arguments Against Absolute Idealism. There is, crit- 
ics of absolutism argue, a logical defect in seeking to locate 
the whole system of reality in one mind. This one mind 
can have no secrets from itself. The “point of view of the 
absolute” is that of transparent and wholly adequate com- 
pleteness. There appears to be no logical objection to inter- 
preting the world of physical things as the absolutist would 
do.” But there is serious difficulty in reconciling the 
point of view of the Absolute with the point of view of the 
finite self. The finite self is finite; is limited, wilfully evil 
sometimes, genuinely and ignorantly ignorant about most 
of the universe. How, then, can perfect knowledge and 
genuine ignorance be in the same mind? It is simple enough 
to reply that the Absolute includes and transcends our evil 
and ignorance; but the very fact that our evil and ignorance 
are transcended means that in the Absolute they are not 
what in the finite mind they are,—truly evil and ignorant. 
The Absolute cannot, then, include my finiteness precisely 
as I experience it; while an absolute mind could, indeed, 
know all about my finiteness, the experience of that mind 
could not be limited as I am limited without a contradiction 
that no dialectic can remove. The same general considera- 
tions also apply to whatever is really mine in my freedom. 

Further, it may be argued that the epistemological monism 
on which absolutism depends is refuted by the very nature 
of the selfhood to which it appeals. It is true that self and 

1R. W. Emerson, Brahma. 


2The new realists would disagree with the text at this point. Cf. 
The New Realism, esp. the Appendix. 


IDEALISM 245 


self-experience are, as the absolutist argues, identical. But 
it is equally true that coherent thought is impossible unless 
we adopt the hypothesis that there are other human selves. 
My individual selfhood and that of my neighbor cannot 
be understood as being truly merged in the absolute self 
without a surrender of the privacy and immediacy that is the 
very nature of what a self is. ‘I’? am a conscious self that 
knows other selves, interacts with them, is dependent on the 
real universe, while remaining identical with myself and 
never sharing immediately the slightest fragment of my 
experience with any other self. 

If the absolutist appeals to the fusion of split-off multiple 
personalities into one normal self as evidence that selves 
may merge, he is treading on dangerous ground; for, if this 
evidence is to have force, it must be based on the admission 
that the human and divine selves are now separate but may 
later flow into one by the absolute’s autopsychotherapy. Yet 
this is not what absolutism means. It means that even now 
and eternally there is only one Self. If there be only one 
Self now, the critic must reply, then the testimony of my 
own self-experience that I am a separate and distinct con- 
sciousness is so utterly false that it becomes impossible to 
use selfhood any longer as a clew to reality. No other mind 
can include my selfhood without destroying it; and my 
mind and the other minds of my human world are not now 
merged into one unless our experience is utterly illusory; 
nor can they ever be thus merged without contradicting the 
nature of selfhood. There must forever be a duality between 
my mind (as long as it is what it is) and the other minds 
that I know, whether finite or absolute; monism cannot 
squeeze the many persons into one. 

(2) PreRsonaALisM. The other form of idealism to be 
discussed may be variously called personalism, personal or 


246 WORLD VIEWS 


personalistic idealism, or theistic idealism. It is the view 
that interprets reality as a society of persons; there is one 
Supreme Person, in and for whose thought and will all 
physical things exist so that they are nothing apart from 
him. The functioning of his conscious will is their being; 
their matter and energy is his conscious purpose concretely 
expressed. Finite persons also depend on his purpose 
for their being, yet their being is self-conscious and 
relatively self-determining; not identical with his conscious- 
ness, as is the being of physical things. In finite selves, 
the Supreme Person wills the existence of what is genuinely 
other than himself; so that the universe is ultimately a society 
of selves, not a single self. For absolutism, God is all that 
there is; for personalism, God is not all there is——human 
persons are no part of him. For both, it is true, the unity 
and the plurality of the universe alike depend on the Absolute 
Self; but absolutism swallows up the plurality in the unity, 
while personalism holds that the facts demand a real plural- 
ity dependent for its being on the unity, yet not wholly deter- 
mined in detail by the unity. The personalist does not 
pretend this view is simple and easy; but he maintains that 
it does more than any other view to make all the facts intel- 
ligible. 

(a) Arguments for Personalism. ‘The personalist appeals 
to the coherence theory as a ground for believing that there 
is a unitary and supreme mind in the universe. Without 
this hypothesis, the order and interaction of nature becomes 
a mystic miracle, an inexplicable fact. Thus absolutism and 
personalism have a common starting point. 

The facts of finite limitation and the nature of self- 
experience prove, as the previous discussions have shown, 
that finite selves are really distinct, true ‘““monads,” and no 
part of any other self. 


IDEALISM 247 


Personalism is consistent with epistemological dualism, 
which has been established on other grounds. As has been 
shown above, the dualism of idea and object is in accord- 
ance with the fact of a plurality of persons, which an ulti- 
mate monism contradicts. 

(b) Arguments Against Personalism. It is sometimes 
held that personalism is precluded by the world view of 
mechanistic realism. The validity of this contention depends 
obviously on whether the world can be completely explained 
on mechanistic principles. Chapters VIII and IX will be 
devoted to an investigation of this problem. 

It is also objected that the concept of person is inadequate 
to serve as the fundamental principle of the universe. This 
question will be taken up in Chapter IX. The reader is 
also referred to Chapter VI. | 

Some contend that personalism is not a fruitful principle. 
This objection is often raised without any clear definition of 
what is meant by “fruitful.” A good hypothesis, the logic 
book tells us, should be productive; it should lead to further 
consequences; it should not stand alone, but should be such 
that deductions may be made from it. It is evident enough 
that personalism is not fruitful as are hypotheses in the 
physical sciences. They lead to mathematically accurate 
predictions of future events; the personalistic hypothesis 
gives knowledge of an entirely different order. Personalism 
offers an account of the facts and values of experience that 
leads to an interpretation of the meaning of life as a 
whole. Any new conception of the meaning of life gives 
new significance to every part, just as the sunlight brings 
into clear relief the details of this earthly scene and enables 
man to see and thus to understand and to transform the 
face of nature. Personalism is particularly fruitful in that 
it gives a cosmic status to the ideal values and so views 


248 WORLD VIEWS 


personality as more than a terrestrial incident. Personality 
need not be abashed in the presence of astronomical space 
and time; all reality is personal, and the striving of human 
beings acquires new dignity. Personalism, then, will appear 
unfruitful to all who regard as unimportant the problems of 
the value and destiny of persons in the universe. It is safe 
to say that he who takes a human interest in philosophy will 
have no complaint about the fruitfulness of personalism. 
The discussion of personalism has been materially abbre- 
viated because the remaining chapters of the book, partic- 
ularly VIII, EX and X will be devoted to a treatment of 
some of the contentions of personalism, and consideration 
of opposing positions. In the opinion of the writer of this 
book, the fundamental issue of metaphysics is that between 
mechanism and teleology: Is this world a play of blind and 
necessary laws, without end or goal, or is this world and all 
its laws the expression of purpose? The next chapter will 
proceed to an examination of the mechanistic position. 


CHAPTER VIII 


IS THE WORLD A MACHINE? 


SI. THE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM OF META- 
PHYSICS: MECHANISM US. TELEOLOGY 


From the point of view of what Schopenhauer has called 
“man’s need of metaphysics,’”’ the fundamental question of 
philosophy has to do with the purpose of life. Looking at 
human life as a whole, and, so far as we can, at the world * 
as a whole, may we reasonably assert that the universe has 
a meaning or purpose? Some philosophers have held that 
the facts of experience imply intelligent purpose as their 
only possible explanation; some have held that the world em- 
bodies meaning although it may be that it is not conscious of 
its meaning. Either of these views or any view that regards 
the universe as realizing ends or values is a form of teleology. 
Another important group of philosophers has held that all 
facts are to be explained as a necessary consequence of 
previous facts, and not as the expression of purpose. The 
view of these thinkers is called mechanism. It rests on what 
Aristotle called “efficient cause,’’ while teleology explains the 
facts in terms of what he called “‘final cause.”” Many believe 
that mechanism and teleology contradict each other, and 
hence they deny the one or the other of these theories, or at 
least seek to modify one so as to render it consistent with 
the other. Others hold that both are true; the universe, they 
think, is, like a pump or a radio, a mechanism that embodies 


1“World” is used in the sense of the entire universe, all reality. 
249 


250 MECHANISM 


purpose. Still others, such as the adherents of Vaihinger’s 
“As If” philosophy,’ rendered desperate by what they deem 
the contradiction of the two points of view, conclude that 
both are false,—are mere “fictions,” useful in organizing 
experience, but not objectively true. 

The issue between mechanism and teleology is complicated 
by the fact that many different interests of the mind are 
at stake. This leads to different conceptions of what the 
real problem is. Mechanism, for instance, is sometimes 
thought of as opposed to idealism; mechanism is then con- 
ceived in terms of matter and motion, and idealism in terms 
of mind and purpose. Again, mechanism may be opposed 
to freedom; and the issue is whether cause shall be inter- 
preted in terms of temporal sequence or in terms of personal 
self-determination that transcends time.” Or it may be con- 
trasted with vitalism. The problem in this case turns about 
the nature of life. Is life to be explained in mechanistic 
terms or is there a principle at work in the organism that 
realizes ends and that cannot be understood unless its rela- 
tion to the not-yet-real be taken into account? Yet all as- 
pects of the controversy are simply different ways of dealing 
with the question: Can our world be adequately understood 
if we face, with mechanism, toward the past, and regard the 
present as completely explained and wholly determined by 
the past; or is it necessary, with teleology, to take into ac- 
count the future, the purposes not yet realized, the goals not 
yet attained, in order to interpret experience? 

No preliminary statement, however, can do justice by the 
problems. Since the issues are fundamental, two chapters 
will be devoted to them; the present chapter will discuss 


1 See the very interesting article by J. Schultz in Annalen der Philoso- 
phie, II, 521 ff. 

2 It is not true that believers in freedom deny cause or assert uncaused 
events. 


MECHANISM AND ORGANISM 251 


mechanism, and the following one, teleology. This chapter 
will not aim to differentiate the complicated varieties and 
bearings of mechanistic theories, but will attempt to interpret 
the essential common traits of all mechanism and to relate it 
to similar views, such as materialism. 


§2. WHAT ARE A MECHANISM AND AN 
ORGANISM? 


The word mechanism is obviously derived from the word 
machine; and a machine (or mechanism) is usually thought 
of in contrast with an organism. Each of these terms was 
employed by Aristotle.* He used the former to mean human 
Inventions or contrivances, and the latter to mean a living 
body or any of its parts regarded as an “instrument.” 

Modern philosophy has greatly extended and deepened 
their meaning. Since Descartes and Robert Boyle, there has 
been an increasing tendency to use the word mechanism in 
describing nature as a whole. All physical changes are then 
explained by the laws of matter and motion. Much present- 
day mechanistic philosophy is of this sort; it regards the 
principles of physical science as sufficient to explain every- 
thing that is or can be in matter and mind, existence and 
value, particular and universal. This is materialistic mechan- 
ism. 

It is not necessary, however, that mechanistic philosophy 
should be confined to the materialistic type. The concept 
machine may be enlarged to mean any system wholly deter- 
mined by the sequence of its parts. Under this definition it 
is proper to speak of the association of ideas in a mind as a 


1For a discussion of the history of the concepts, see Eucken, Main 
Currents of Modern Thought, pp. 165-169, to which discussion the text is 
indebted. 


252 MECHANISM 


mechanism. The difficulties of the problem are never faced 
until it is grasped as it was by Kant in this universal form. 
It is relatively easy to analyze and work out a plausible 
proof or refutation of materialism; a mechanism that does 
not depend on the idea of matter is much more difficult to 
refute. 

The term organism has also experienced changes. Until 
the eighteenth century, it was used only of living bodies. 
The contrast between organism and mechanism was not fully 
developed until the time of Kant and the post-Kantian 
philosophy. At this time it was seen that mechanistic ex- 
planation did not do justice by the structure of an organism. 
Kant formulated the famous definition that “an organized 
product of nature is one in which all is end and, reciprocally, 
is also means.” An organism, then, is a structure in which 
the parts are not merely related to other parts, but the parts 
and the whole are also in mutual interrelations. The parts 
are determined by the function or end of the system as ai 
whole. The point is well brought out by Windelband, who 
says that ‘‘a watch is a whole that may be put together out 
of previously existing parts, while an organism must itself 
produce the parts out of which it is to consist.”’* The prin- 
ciple of organism is illustrated in living beings; and also in 
consciousness, in values, in society,—and perhaps in the 
universe as a whole. 

It is evident that the competition between the principle 
of mechanism and the principle of organism is logically con- 
nected with that competition between the method of analysis- 
synthesis and the method of synopsis to which frequent 
reference has been made in this book. 

1 Einleitung in die Philosophie, 2nd. ed., p. 165. 


POPULAR THOUGHT 253 


§ 3. MAN’S ATTEMPTS TO EXPLAIN HIS WORLD 


Teleology suffers from the disadvantage of having been 
the first explanation that was thought of. As soon as primi- 
tive man began to wonder about the meaning of his experi- 
ences he framed a crude teleology as his explanation of 
things. The trees and brooks he peopled with spirits more 
or less like human beings; disease and accident, eclipse and 
storm he attributed to demons. All life and change, partic- 
ularly everything affecting man’s interests, must, he felt, 
be due to some being with a purpose, be it good or bad, 
serious or playful. Animism‘ and spiritism are found alike 
in ancient times and among primitive peoples to-day; they 
still persist in various superstitious beliefs among civilized 
men. A child seems to be a natural animist; for it shows a 
tendency to treat any object that hinders or hurts it with a 
certain resentment; or any object that pleases it, with affec- 
tion:—as though, in either case, the object itself were a 
person and were expressing a purpose. 

That world of spirits and demons, with their whimsical, 
arbitrary wills, has been banished from serious thought by 
the march of civilization. Two streams of progress have 
contributed to this end, the religious and the scientific. 

The history of religion has tended toward monotheism; 
and monotheism is the belief in one God as the sole creator 
and object of worship. In proportion as the idea of God was 
clearly grasped by religion, traffic with spirits through 
witches or medicine men was crowded out. If the existence 
of lesser supernatural wills was still acknowledged, their 
agency was more and more clearly recognized as subject to, 
or permitted by, the will of the one God. Monotheism in its 
purest form finds no room in nature for the causal activity 

1See W. McDougall, Body and Mind. 


254 MECHANISM 


of any other power than that of God. The malevolent 
demons and the good fairies disappear with all false gods, 
and the sovereignty of God is the outcome of religious 
thought. The Greeks, it is true, were haunted by the vision 
of some dark and awful necessity or Fate to which God him- 
self was subject. This belief in necessity was, indeed, incom- 
patible with monotheism; but it served the function of under- 
mining still further the popular animism. 

The development of science aided more effectively this 
same result. There arose men who, dissatisfied with the 
vague and lawless conceptions of traditional animism and 
popular religion, began to seek for an explanation of the 
facts of the rational order in the laws and uniformities that 
may be found in experience itself. Thales, for example, may 
have thought, as Aristotle reports, that all things are full of 
gods; but his real interest was in the theory that water 
is the “material cause” of all things. He observed the 
changes which water undergoes, and the importance of 
water, or moisture, to all life, and he inferred that every- 
thing was water in some form. Thales had hit, in a crude 
way, on the essential principle of mechanism. Mechanism 
aims to explain everything in terms of the laws of change. 
Out of this germ grew the sciences and the mechanistic 
philosophies. 

Ancient mechanism found its chief exponent in Democ- 
ritus, the great materialist. Modern mechanism has taken 
on new life through the growth of experimental and induc- 
tive sciences, and through the applications of mathematics to 
science. Mathematical formulas, meeting repeated experi- 
mental verifications, give the exact sciences a solid basis. 
This situation gives rise to the hypothesis that every event 
in the universe is a necessary product of previous events, 
and that an all-wise mathematician could predict the entire 


POPULAR THOUGHT 255 


future of the universe with the same accuracy with which 
the astronomer can now predict an eclipse. This is the 
mechanistic philosophy in its perfect form. From it all 
reference to purpose is eliminated. 

Meanwhile there has continued the development of 
teleological thought. Science itself has not been wholly 
satisfied with the mechanistic program. In biology and 
psychology, especially, mechanistic explanation has not ap- 
peared to do justice by the organism and the conscious life, 
although the mechanists—sometimes giving the impression of 
greater loyalty to their theory than to the facts—have been 
convinced that they could make their conquest complete. 
Meanwhile, religion, morality, education, and law have 
been using the category of purpose in the interpretation of 
human life and its values, and even of the universe as a 
whole. Hence the problem becomes acute. If the universe 
be merely a mechanism, how can we account for the purposes 
and values we find in human experience? Are they not 
inexplicable? Or if the universe be purposive, why should 
it appear to thought so largely under the guise of a mechan- 
ism? 

It cannot be asserted that any single solution to the prob- 
lem has met with general approval. The working solutions 
actually adopted are largely rough compromises that may 
work fairly well, but are, from the rational standpoint, defec- 
tive. 

Popular uncritical Christian thought, for example, has 
derived satisfaction from a view which is an imperfect 
mechanism, combined with an imperfect teleology. This 
view holds that God long ago created the world, perhaps in 
4004 B. C., perhaps even earlier. Since then, the world has 
gone on in accordance with mechanical laws of its own, 
quite apart from God, save for a few occasions when God 


256 MECHANISM 


intervenes by a miracle. This view, commonly called deism, 
regards the world substantially as does materialistic mecha- 
nism, except for the interventions of divine will. It is an 
interrupted mechanism. Since, however, the ordinary course 
of nature is apart from the will of God, the teleology of this 
view is as imperfect as its mechanism. It gives people the 
comfort of saying, This calamity in my life, this suffering 
or death of a loved one, was not God’s will, but was a result 
of the laws of nature. Yet from a logical standpoint, this is 
cold comfort; it saves the goodness of God at the cost of 
his control of nature! “This view tends to make nature 
and God two foreign powers that cannot survive together in 
a coherent world view. 

Popular scientific thought also subsists on compromise. 
The ordinary man of science “gets along” by keeping his 
science and his life in two water-tight compartments. In 
the science compartment, he is a mechanist. Everything is 
regarded as the necessary result of previous conditions. 
Homer and Plato, Pasteur and Edison, Jesus and Paul, are 
understood in terms of the fire-mist. But in the life com- 
partment this same scientist acts as though purpose were 
the deeper truth. He chooses, plans, thinks as though the 
ends realized by these activities were their justification; as 
though he were free to choose, and responsible for choosing. 
He worships God. Thus the compromise of popular scien- 
tific thought is scarcely less contradictory and unreasonable 
than the deistic compromise of religion. 

The age-old debate has not come to a conclusion. There 
is still division within the ranks of science, between science 
and philosophy, science and religion, philosophy and religion. 
The difficulty is so great that many are inclined to regard 
as futile any attempt to judge the merits of the question. 
But no thoughtful human being can wholly suspend judgment 


VALUE OF MECHANISM 257 


on his own deepest interests. The mechanism-teleology con- 
troversy is precisely of such sort as to challenge thought. 
The mind cannot rest in its presence. 


§ 4. THE TRUTH AND VALUE OF MECHANISTIC 
EXPLANATION 


Mechanism may roughly be described as the standpoint 
of the physical sciences. It cannot lightly be brushed aside 
as the manner of some is. If our philosophy, as a world- 
view, is to be in any sense a scientia scientiarum,' it must 
find place for mechanism. ‘The only question—and it is 
the most fundamental one that can be raised—is whether 
mechanism is the final explanation of everything or whether 
it leaves some facts unexplained and in turn itself needs to 
be explained. Material for an answer to this question will 
be outlined in this and the following chapter. 

That there are both truth and value in mechanistic ex- 
planation is evident to any one who has the slightest acquain- 
tance with modern science. 

Science is a search for causes. As long as men asked, 
What is the purpose of this or that fact in nature? any num- 
ber of interesting speculations might be offered in reply. In 
this direction, however, no definite and assured progress can 
be made. Bacon said that the “handling of final causes 
mixed with the rest in physical inquiries, hath intercepted the 
severe and diligent inquiry of all real and physical causes’’; 
and Spinoza characterized the will of God as “the refuge of 
ignorance.” When, however, men began to ask, What is the 
cause of this or that fact? investigation and experiment had 
a problem set before them that could be solved, and that 
rendered indefinite advance possible. By cause, science 


4“Science of the sciences.” 


258 MECHANISM 


means an event or condition of a certain sort that is always 
followed by another event or condition of a certain sort 
known as the effect. Briefly stated, “empirical” or ‘“phenom- 
enal” causation, as it is called, means uniform sequence. 
The mechanistic world-view, with all its implications, is an 
extension of the law of cause and effect. What is more 
harmless and necessary than that law? It may be, however, 
that there are hidden preconceptions in the scientific view of 
cause. Be that as it may, the hypothesis that every event, 
n, is to be explained by some previous event, m-1, has shown 
itself to be the instrument of scientific progress. 

Further, the spirit of mechanistic explanation is friendly 
to free and untrammeled investigation. Where mechanism is 
held as a dogma necessary to scientific salvation, this spirit, 
so to speak, is bound. Ordinarily, however, the scientist 
seeks to be instructed by experience; he has his eye on the 
facts. No prejudice and no authority can lead him away 
from them. The mechanical explanation of astronomical and 
physical facts has been one of the greatest forces for free- 
dom in history. It has banished superstition and brought 
enlightenment to the race. Here, then, is a paradox: mech- 
anism in the service of freedom. 

Moreover, mechanical explanation is capable of precise 
verification. A causal hypothesis is no sooner formulated 
than it is experimentally tested. If the results agree with 
the hypothesis, it is verified. If it be mathematical in form, 
the verification is the more convincing. The astronomer 
can calculate the date of any eclipse in the future or the 
past history of the earth. In the face of such evidence, who 
can doubt that mechanical law is true of the known universe? 
Indeed, no responsible thinker has any idea of denying that 
mechanical laws are valid. No one doubts that there are 
mechanical systems in the universe, although many doubt 


LTS*LPMERACELEONS 259 


whether the principle of mechanism is adequate to give a 
complete explanation of all the facts of human experience. 

From the possibility of making predictions arises the fact 
that mechanical explanation enables man to control his 
experience. Knowledge of the mechanism of pumps brings 
drinking water to the faucet in every home; knowledge of 
the mechanics of gases and electricity lights our houses and 
our streets, alleviates suffering, or kills the enemy in war. 
Insight into mechanical law makes it possible for men to sail 
under the water or to fly in the air. Knowledge of psycho- 
logical mechanisms has been of great aid to the physician, the 
educator, and the social worker. 

The growth of mechanical science has freed man from 
superstition and opened his eyes to the facts of nature. It 
has given him vastly increased power over nature and his 
fellow-man. But this power is greater than he knows how 
to use. A thoughtful European observer, Professor Georg 
Mehlis, has remarked that civilization is dying of its own 
beauty. If philosophy has no more to offer civilization than 
can be contained in mechanical formule, she is but a symbol 
of the helplessness and futility of human life. Mechanical 
knowledge doubtless makes possible the control of nature; 
but such knowledge contains no principle indicating how it 
ought to be used. 


§ 5. THE LIMITATIONS OF MECHANISTIC 
EXPLANATION 


No one can doubt that the principles of mechanical 
explanation have proved themselves true in wide ranges of 
our experience. Yet, despite the triumphs of mechanistic 
science, there always have been and probably always will be 
many scientists and philosophers who are not satisfied with 


260 MECHANISM 


a merely mechanistic account of reality. They are led to 
this dissatisfaction by a large number of considerations of 
varying degrees of cogency. Some of those considerations 
will now be discussed. 

(1) UntversaL MecuHanismM Not DEMONSTRATED. The 
universal truth of mechanism cannot be said to be demon- 
strated. Science is a long way from possessing sufficient 
knowledge of mechanical laws to be able to predict to-mor- 
row’s weather, much less to-morrow’s behavior of human 
beings. The belief that mechanical laws are true of every- 
thing and will explain everything is not yet substantiated by 
knowledge; it is an article of faith and hope. Any theory 
is an interpretation of experience. This one has shown itself 
true for large parts of experience. To assert that it is there- 
fore true for all parts of experience and for experience as a 
whole is to express an ideal that is not verified. Any world 
view doubtless involves a certain attitude of faith,—the 
attitude, that is, of making and genuinely testing some hy- 
pothesis. It is, however, worth remembering that mechanism 
as faith about the universe cannot lay claim to the certainty 
that attaches to mechanism as verified law about some system 
in a part of the universe. It is true that this consideration 
does not disprove mechanism; it serves, however, to weaken 
the force of extravagant claims made in behalf of that 
theory. 

(2) Mecuanisms Usrep By Purposr. Mechanical ex- 
planation presupposes and in turn is used by purpose. 
Mechanical explanation did not fall from the apple tree that 
Sir Isaac Newton was observing; only an apple fell. Sir 
Isaac Newton’s mind set to work to the end of explaining all 
falling bodies under one law; and the concept of mechanism 
was the outcome of Newton’s purpose. No one can arrive 
at a mechanistic or any other philosophy without purposing 


ITS LIMLTDATIONS 261 


to think. Further, it is an undeniable fact of experience 
that man uses knowledge of mechanical laws in order to 
fulfill his purposes. He wishes to extend the means of 
transportation or communication; he attains the end by using 
mechanisms that science has discovered. This fact, which, 
as we saw, is one of the chief arguments for the value of 
mechanical explanation, is also an indication of the sub- 
ordination of mechanism to purpose. Experience shows, 
then, that mechanical explanation is rendered possible by 
purpose and is used by purpose. 

(3) MecHANISM EXPLAINS PURPOSE IN TERMS OF No- 
Purpose. The mechanistic philosopher is not, however, 
convinced by the sort of argument sketched in the previous 
paragraph. He holds that the control of mechanism by 
purpose may well be stated in purely mechanical terms. 
It is true, he would admit, that purposes use and control 
mechanisms of nature; but this he would view as only a 
special case of the familiar law that one part of a machine 
affects another part. Purpose may be regarded as a process 
of biological mechanism which serves as cause of certain 
effects in the mechanical order of nature. Thus the mechan- 
ist reasserts his position. 

The plausibility of this point is largely derived from its 
shortness of range. It seems easy enough to abandon pur- 
pose and freedom as principles of explanation when the law 
of cause and effect appears to be at stake; but no special 
formulation of any law is sacred. Every law must be 
judged by its adequacy to interpret the facts. The facts 
that philosophy cares about are all the facts there are in 
experience as a whole. It is not so easy to consider experi- 
ence as a whole as it is to consider neural mechanisms; 
but men often lose more than they gain by declining to do 
their best with a difficult task. 


262 MECHANISM 


From the short-range point of view, then, conscious pur- 
pose may perhaps be regarded as the product of a biological 
mechanism. The seemingly purposive adaptations of organic 
life fall conceivably under the same rubric. If, however, 
the true meaning of this situation be stated from the point of 
view of experience as a whole, the outcome is this: that 
all purpose is explained in terms of no-purpose. ‘This prop- 
osition the critic of mechanism believes to be unreasonable. 

The mechanist will doubtless ask opportunity to defend 
himself as soon as this criticism is offered. It would be no 
more than just to let him speak first, seeing that he is on 
trial for his life. He might say either that he does not 
explain purpose in terms of no-purpose; or that he does so 
and that it is quite reasonable to do it. 

Let him deny that he explains purpose in terms of no 
purpose. He will then say that purposes and purposive 
adaptations are explained on his view as outcomes of previous 
teleological situations. If he be a determinist interested in 
ethics and education he may say that his principle, far from 
banishing purpose, is what makes purpose effective and 
significant. A man’s acts are the necessary product of his 
character; his character, the product of his previous history. 
Therefore let his teachers, when he is a child, implant in him 
wise aims and high ideals. The law of mechanical cause 
and effect will produce the results intended by the moral 
educator. Even though this were wholly true in life, as it 
obviously is not, it would still be an instance of the fallacy of 
the short-range view. If the investigator pushes his in- 
quiries back before the birth of the child and his teachers, 
back before the origin of life, he must inevitably arrive at a 
state of affairs when, for his theory, there was no purpose in 
the entire universe. The mechanist, therefore, who takes all 
the facts into account together with all the implications of 


ITS LIMITATIONS 263 


his own theory will be unable to confine his attention to man 
as a psychobiological organism or to the present state of 
affairs in nature. He must view man and nature in relation 
to all that we know about their past history. A truly genetic 
and evolutionary view must look as far as it can. Mecha- 
nistic explanation has not become conscious of itself until 
it sees that its position necessarily implies an account of all 
purpose in terms of no-purpose. 

The mechanist may then choose the other horn of the 
dilemma. He may say, “Yes, I indeed interpret all purpose 
in terms of no-purpose; I am compelled to do this by the 
logic of cause and effect and therefore my interpretation 
is reasonable.” Is he right? The ensuing discussion will 
seek an answer to this question. 

It is often said that it is obviously impossible to explain 
consciousness in terms of unconsciousness, or purpose in 
terms of the non-purposive; and that mechanism is therefore 
untrue. When one inquires into the reasons for this obvious- 
ness one does not always receive light for his pains. Some 
incline to regard the principle as self-evident; but Chapter 
II taught us that intuitions cannot stand alone. They need 
support from the rest of experience. Critics, moreover, have 
not been slow to point out that the principle cannot be a 
universally valid intuition, for it appears to derive its force 
from the hidden assumption that any effect must resemble its 
cause. Experience testifies abundantly that effects and 
causes are often very different. The cow is a crucial in- 
stance. She eats green grass and gives white milk out of 
which yellow butter is made. It is not, therefore, self- 
evidently true that purpose cannot be explained in terms of 
no-purpose. The contention between mechanist and teleolo- 
gist must be settled on the fair field of argument, not in the 
darkness of intuition. 


264 MECHANISM 


The mechanistic philosophy arises from a minute study 
of the laws of motion, and comes to the facts of mind and 
purpose with preconceptions derived from the non-mental 
and the non-purposive. As Charles Peirce once remarked, 
Democritus, “having restricted his attention to a field where 
no influence other than mechanical constraint could pos- 
sibly come before his notice, straightway jumped to the 
conclusion that throughout the universe that was the sole 
principle of action,—a style of reasoning so usual in our 
day with men not unreflecting as to be more than excusable 
in the infancy of thought.” * This “style of reasoning” easily 
blinds the eyes of the reasoner to whatever properties mind 
and purpose may have that cannot be described in material- 
istic terms. All explanation is a selection of the relevant and 
a disregard of the irrelevant. A mechanistic bias might 
well lead a thinker to treat certain aspects of purpose as 
irrelevant or accidental. The extreme behaviorist, for in- 
stance, regards consciousness, subjective feeling, and the 
like as “meaningless” or ‘‘unintelligible.” 

The range of facts that it ignores or inadequately explains 
is so wide as to constitute a refutation of universal mecha- 
nism. Some of these facts have recently been brought to- 
gether by Julius Schultz.” According to the mechanistic biol- 
ogist, Verworn, cells, of which living organisms are built up, 
are composed of tiny mechanisms known as biogens. Schultz 
argues that if we trace the history of the universe back 
beyond the origin of our solar system, we gain a perspective 
of one series of worlds after another, arising and perishing. 
Throughout this universal drama, if Verworn’s mechanism be 


1 Article on “The Doctrine of Necessity Examined,” in The Monist, 
April, 1892; reprinted in Chance, Love, and Logic, p. 179. 

2“Die Fiktion vom Universum als Maschine.. .’, Ann. der Phil., 2 
(1921), 521-531. The discussion in the text uses some of Schultz’s 
points and adds others. 


ITS,LIMIDATIONS 265 


true, the biogens are preserved. When the solar system is 
formed, some biogens are found at the bottom of the oceans 
in an environment where, as Henderson has pointed out, 
just the elements were present in just the proportions favor- 
able to the development of life. In particular, carbon and 
oxygen were at hand, and such a necessary compound as 
water. Now, says Schultz, the preservation of the life- 
germs (biogens) and their presence in friendly surround- 
ings was either due to mere chance or was the expression 
of some plan or meaning that was present where the human 
eye could see only primeval chaos. ‘Mere chance” is an- 
other way of saying that there is no explanation! 

The evolution of life from its primitive germs to higher 
types demands some cause. Animals and plants, which 
are adapted to each other and need each other, arose at the 
same time. Schultz frankly says, “the structure of the 
biogens alone cannot guarantee the meaning of to-day.” 
In order to account for orchids and butterflies and apes, 
we must not alone be able to explain the development of 
life, but we must grant that the mechanical order of events 
is so arranged as to realize ends and meaning. Regarding 
the origin of life, we must either hold some theory like that 
of Verworn, or else we must explain life in terms of the 
inorganic; either view is equally difficult in the light of the 
facts to which attention has been called. 

The philosopher, however, will not confine his attention to 
the facts of organic life. The relations between organic and 
inorganic are so close that if life realizes ends it must be 
granted that inorganic nature cooperates and belongs in the 
same system of ends. There is in the universe a tendency to 
realize meaningful structures or ends through the correlation 
of seemingly independent series of events. Such a tendency 
finds no place within the field of a strictly mechanical philos- 


266 MECHANISM 


ophy. The mechanist says that any event is the necessary 
consequence of previous events. If it also realizes an end, the 
coincidence is interesting and perhaps fortunate, but it is a 
brute fact, admitting no further explanation. The teleologist 
says that these “brute facts,” these ends that nature realizes, 
prove that there is a law of purpose in reality that cannot be 
described as mere mechanical sequence of cause and effect. 

Thus it would appear that the mechanist explains all pur- 
pose in terms of no-purpose, and in so doing is unreason- 
able, for his type of explanation does not cover all the facts. 
The mechanist’s explanation of purposive adaptations as 
purely mechanical products is too easy-going. It is a 
short-range view, insufficiently inquisitive. 

(4) MrecHANISM PRESUPPOSES PURPOSE TO KNOW 
TruTH. The foregoing criticism has shown that mechanistic 
philosophy has no right to any form of purpose or end 
among its first principles. Yet, if it is to expound and defend 
its own position, it must recognize the purpose to think 
truly and must believe that this purpose can be attained. 
Critics of mechanism, like Bowne, have often argued that 
here mechanism contradicts itself. If mechanism be uni- 
versal, then everything in the universe is an equally neces- 
sary outcome of what has been. The “everything” includes 
all thoughts and all systems of philosophy. If mechanism 
be true, it is equally necessary for some to believe in mecha- 
nism and others in teleology; and equally futile for either 
party to appeal to reason; for the appeal to reason is an 
appeal from what is in the mind at present to an ideal of 
logical truth. The mechanistic philosophy makes any such 
appeal to ideals or ends as ultimate principles logically im- 
possible. 

To this argument the mechanist may reply that it does 
not hit the nail on the head. A belief, he would contend, 


ITS LIMITATIONS 267 


may be either true or false, no matter how necessary an 
outcome of previous conditions it may be. An admitted 
mechanism, like a phonograph, might utter either truth or 
error. If the phonograph happens on the truth, the truth 
is no less true. 

The critic of mechanism must, of course, admit that if 
mechanism be true, it is not rendered untrue because all 
events, including belief in mechanism, are causally deter- 
mined. Nevertheless he will not admit that this fact refutes 
his criticism. If he were to take up the illustration of the 
phonograph, he might well say that, if human beings were 
as truly mechanical as is a phonograph, they would be as 
incapable as a phonograph of judging the truth of their 
utterances by a scientific or logical ideal. To be more lit- 
eral, we may say that if all thought processes are completely 
determined by antecedent neural and psychological condi- 
tions, there is no room left for explanation in terms of pur- 
pose to attain the end of conformity to truth. The same 
point may be stated in other words. If the mechanist ad- 
mits that it is legitimate to judge psychological processes 
by the ideal demands of reason, he has thereby admitted that 
mechanical explanation is not the whole truth. He is com- 
pelled in logical consistency to admit the truth of the 
teleological principle, in so far as scientific thought is the 
end sought. He has to say, “No view at all, mechanism or 
any other, can be judged to be true unless man is free to 
entertain a purpose to think truly and to judge his actual 
thoughts by his ideal of what true thinking demands. Fur- 
ther, no view can be said to be true of the universe unless 
the universe itself conforms to the ideal ends of thought.” 

When the mechanist sees the implications of his own 
thought in the manner thus stated, he will perceive that the 
nose of the teleological camel is in his tent. How can he 


268 MECHANISM 


exclude the remainder of the animal? When he realizes that 
the explanation of purpose in terms of no-purpose has led 
him to what strangely resembles the explanation of truth in 
terms of no-truth, he may be inclined to inquire whether his 
principle does not need correction or at least supplementa- 
tion. The camel may be a friend! 

(5) MrcHANiIsmM INVOLVES INFINITE REGRESS. From 
another point of view mechanistic explanation fails to 
satisfy the mind. Pure philosophical mechanism asserts that 
the complete and only explanation of the present state of 
affairs in the universe is to be found in the previous state of 
affairs. If the present be represented by rz and the preceding 
moment by 2, and so on back into the past, then z is wholly 
explained by the fact that it followed 2 necessarily; and 2 
by the fact that it followed 3, and so on. The series is in- 
finite. To the old question, Which came first, the hen or 
the egg? the mechanist would answer, Neither, for there was 
no first; before the earliest event we can think of there was 
an infinite series of yet earlier ones. This situation is 
commonly called the infinite regress (regressus ad infinitum). 
Now, such explanation as a philosophy of reality is unsatis- 
factory. 

Truth is a coherent synopsis, a view of reality as a whole. 
In the infinite regress there is no whole. Hence Hegel called 
the regress a “‘bad infinite.” This objection is perhaps not 
final. It may be that reality will disappoint our most rational 
expectations. Nevertheless a theory that wantonly frustrates 
reason should be accepted only as a last resort of despair. 
If a more rational view exists in teleology, it would be per- 
verse to cling to the less rational. 

Further, the infinite regress is from another point of view 
disappointing to thought. Most mechanists analyze the 
universe into elements, be they atoms, electrons, neutral 


DT SVD LAT Age LO NS 269 


entities, or what you will. These elements are assumed to 
be eternally existent and to be constant in number. The 
ongoing of the universe is explained in terms of mechanical 
relations among them. To use a crude illustration, mecha- 
nism compares the universe to a coal-hod full of coal, in 
which the pieces of coal are constantly rearranging them- 
selves. This coal-hod to-day is our problem; the solution is 
the statement that to-day’s coal-hod is a necessary result of 
yesterday’s hod and of that of eons ago. Forever the same 
hod, the same coal. It is not surprising that Bowne and 
many others see mere tautology in such explanation. It is 
insufficiently enlightening. It does not touch the problem 
raised by the facts of purpose and value. It makes real 
novelty impossible. The infinite regress can never be a 
philosophy of life as a whole. 

(6) Mecuanism Is Apstract. The foregoing objec- 
tions to mechanism may all be regarded as different forms 
of one fundamental objection, which is commonly put in the 
form, “Mechanism is an abstract philosophy and is therefore 
not true.” 

If misunderstanding is to be avoided, it is necessary to 
recall the two meanings of the word abstract. It may mean 
what cannot be perceived by the senses. In this sense, every 
theory, true or false, is abstract and abstractness is no argu- 
ment against the truth of a position. The word may, how- 
ever, describe anything taken out of its connection and rela- 
tions in the real world. It is in this latter sense that mecha- 
nism may be said to be abstract and therefore untrue. The 
proposition that mechanistic philosophy is abstract would 
mean that it considers certain aspects of experience but 
ignores or abstracts from their relations to purpose and 
then gives forth the result as an adequate philosophy of 
the whole. 


270 MECHANISM 


To abstraction, even in the second sense, there can be 
no reasonable objection, so long as it is recognized as such 
and is not regarded as a complete account of reality. The 
attentive reader of Chapter I will observe the affinity 
between abstraction and what was in that chapter described 
as analytic method. Without breaking up the confused 
mass of experience as it comes to us and considering its 
parts separately, neither science nor philosophy nor life 
could advance. Far from being unreasonable, abstraction 
is part of the necessary work of reason. Failure, intel- 
lectual and practical, ensues only when the abstract part 
is taken for the whole, the analysis substituted for the work 
of synopsis, the living organism reconstructed from its dis- 
sected and lifeless parts. 

To criticize mechanistic philosophy as abstract, then, 
may mean to assert either that it takes into account some of 
the parts of experience, while omitting other parts, or that 
it considers all the parts into which experience may be 
analyzed without considering our experienced world as a 
whole. Sometimes mechanism is guilty of one of these 
defects, sometimes of the other. Either is fatal. 

Every law of mechanical science is abstract. It defines 
certain conditions apart from all the rest of the universe 
and states what would happen if these conditions were all 
that there were in the universe. In order to explain observed 
aspects of experience, it constructs and defines abstract sys- 
tems and discovers laws true for those systems as defined. 
Its value is evidenced by the progress of physical science. 
Its success depends on its abstractness. The truer a mechan- 
ical law is, the more of concrete reality it is leaving out of 
account. 

The point may be illustrated by reference to the pendulum. 
Webster’s New International Dictionary defines the simple 


ITS*LIMITATIONS 271 


pendulum as “a particle, or material point, suspended by a 
thread without weight and oscillating without friction.” 
This is a perfect abstraction. In concrete experience, no 
such pendulum could ever be found. It can be conceived 
only by abstracting from the real facts and considering, as 
it were, their ghost. Every law of physics is formulated for 
just such theoretically ideal conditions, from which friction 
and the influences of other forces have been eliminated. 
Concretely the application of any law is limited by all the 
real forces in operation. The law of the pendulum is not 
violated if the thread has weight and the suspended object 
is larger than a material point and oscillates with friction; 
nor if the thread breaks or a human hand causes the oscilla- 
tion to cease. 

This means, taken generally, that every mechanical law 
operates under conditions determined by the operation of 
all other mechanical laws. To this proposition, of course, 
every mechanist would give hearty assent. But it involves 
another proposition to which he could not give assent without 
surrendering his system, namely, that mechanical law as a 
whole operates under conditions determined by whatever 
other laws there may be at work in the universe. The fair- 
minded philosopher must face the problems thus raised. 

The question whether there are other laws than mechanical 
ones is to be answered by inquiring from what facts mechan- 
ical explanation abstracts. The answer is almost appalling. 
Mechanism abstracts from all experienced qualities, from 
personality, and from purpose and value. 

That it abstracts from experienced qualities is evident 
to one who is acquainted with the methods of science. Phys- 
ics has no interest in the qualities that we perceive as 
colors. It is interested only in waves of radiant energy. 
Physics aims to leave empirical qualities behind and to 


272 MECHANISM 


express its laws in purely quantitative formule. So with all 
the exact sciences. an 

It also abstracts from personality. A person is an experi- 
enced unity of consciousness, a whole, whose interests, pur- 
poses, and self-identity are ignored whenever a mechanical 
law is formulated, whether in physics or psychology. 

Further it abstracts from purposes and value. Mechan- 
ical science has no interest in the beauty or goodness of the 
world. It considers only what is and ignores its relation 
to what ought to be. For it, the spiritual life consists wholly 
of a knowledge of mechanical law. Happily for the cause 
of truth and for the welfare of the race, few men of science 
are mechanistic philosophers, and the mechanistic philos- 
ophers are rarely consistent with their theory in real life. 

The vast realm of experienced qualities, of selves, and of 
purpose and value must somehow be related to mechanical 
laws; but it cannot be adequately interpreted by those laws. 
Mechanism fails to unify our universe. It does not inter- 
pret the facts as a whole. It may be that the principle of 
teleology, which will be discussed in the next chapter, will 
succeed where mechanism fails. 

(7) MeEcHANISM PRESUPPOSES SPACE AND Time. The 
mechanistic philosophy arose from a study of the laws of 
motion. Science has, in general, tended to “explain” the 
qualitative differences in experience in terms of the motion 
of material particles. Now motion is always from point to 
point in space and from instant to instant in time. In so 
far, then, as mechanism is a generalization of the laws of 
motion, it presupposes that what is true of space and time is 
true of the universe as a whole. If it could be shown that 
space and time are inadequate descriptions of reality, the 
foundations of mechanistic philosophy would be shaken. 

Experience and reflection refute the materialistic view 


ITS LIMITATIONS 273 


that everything can be explained in terms of space and time. 
Earlier chapters have discussed consciousness, universals 
and values. It is certain that these entities are related to 
space and time. It is equally certain (some opposing opin- 
ions to the contrary notwithstanding) that they are not 
located in space or confined to any instant in time. This is 
more easily seen, perhaps, in the case of space than in that 
of time. Consciousness, for instance, is intimately related 
with a spatial object, the brain; and it refers to physical 
objects, both “real” and “imaginary.” It would, however, 
be erroneous to infer that consciousness itself occupies space. 
If it occupied space, that space could be pointed out and 
observed. Brain may be observed; but nowhere in the brain 
has any one found or even pretended to find the actual con- 
scious experience of love or disappointment, the idea of 
yesterday, or the ideal of intellectual honesty. In the brain 
there is only a collection of material particles in motion. 
Consciousness is nowhere in the brain, although it occurs at 
the same time with, or immediately before or after, particular 
events in the brain. Consciousness, then, is not spatial. 
It is neither anywhere in the brain nor anywhere out of it. 
It is a reality to which space-words like “where” simply do 
not apply. 

The extreme behaviorist frankly denies that what we mean 
by consciousness exists at all, and substitutes for the study of 
consciousness the study of the motions of the body and its 
parts. He rejects consciousness because there is no place in 
his system of materialistic mechanism for such a reality as 
consciousness is experienced to be. Would it not be more 
reasonable to revise the system in the light of experience than 
to reject experience on account of the demands of the sys- 
tem? 

So, too, universals like number or causation, and even 


274 MECHANISM 


universals that apply primarily to sense-objects, such as 
green pocket-book, are located nowhere in space. A partic- 
ular green pocket-book is located in space, truly enough; but 
the universal green pocket-book is in no place. It can be 
thought about; it is valid for mind; but neither it nor any 
universal is anywhere in space. The same reasoning applies 
to values. 

The case of time is, as has been said, more difficult to 
understand. ‘Time seems to enter into the very warp and 
woof of consciousness as space does not. It is almost self- 
evidently absurd to say that consciousness fills space. It is 
far from absurd to say that consciousness takes time. All 
the consciousness that we know anything about is in the form 
of before and after. Further, the time-aspect is more funda- 
mental to the mechanistic philosophy than is the space- 
aspect; for, even though space were not universally valid, 
mechanism might be true if temporal sequences were ulti- 
mate. 

If the problem be approached from the point of view of 
universals and values, it appears that here, at least, we have 
entities that are not affected by time, and are true whatever 
time it is. A valid universal is no more or less true now 
than a thousand years ago. Truth does not change. Time 
and its mechanisms do not tell the whole story of the 
universe. 

But how about consciousness? It surely changes, it is 
temporal in its innermost life, is it not? Without time, no 
change, no development. Indeed, whatever philosophers and 
theologians may have said, an utterly timeless consciousness, 
in which there is no relation to present, to past, or future, is 
strictly inconceivable to us. How, then, may it be said 
that mind is not temporal in its nature? 

It is true that consciousness is temporal. This is con- 


ITS LIMITATIONS vb 


sistent with the fact that psychology finds certain conscious 
mechanisms. But it is not true that consciousness is wholly 
temporal. Time may be analyzed into a series of instants, 
one after the other. When one instant goes, another comes. 
Consciousness, however, is not merely this arrival and de- 
parture of instants. An instant does not vanish from mind as 
soon as the next instant dawns. On the contrary, the actual 
consciousness that we are aware of in one act of mind 
includes many instants and presents to us in one mental 
process all that we experience for about six seconds.* This 
time is called the specious present, the time span, or the 
perceptual present. Without the power to hold in mind at 
once events that take time, all temporal and all rational 
experience would be impossible. 

The mind, then, is temporal in that it experiences sequence 
and duration, but it is supertemporal in that it is able to 
grasp in a single conscious act a series of events that takes 
time. This is what philosophers call the time-transcending 
function of mind. It is only because we can grasp in a single 
mental act the meaning of an entire sentence that we are 
able to think. It is only because we are able to experience 
all the events of a specious present as belonging to the self 
that either personal experience or experience of a coherent 
world-order is possible. No account of mind is complete or 
philosophically sound that considers the temporal features 
of mind without also considering its time-transcending 
features and the relations between the two. Mechanism, 
then, is inadequate. 

Hitherto the point of this discussion has been to show that 
there are important aspects of the world of experience that 
are not to be explained in terms of space-time. This has 
assumed that space and time are what we take them to be,— 


1 This time has been established by Titchener’s experiments. 


276 MECHANISM 


whatever that may be! The question remains, Can space 
and time themselves be regarded as ultimately real? This 
question sounds strange, and it should be carefully defined. 
No one has questioned the fact that we experience space and 
time objects. Space and time are “empirically” real,—real 
for experience; or “phenomenally” real,—real as appearance. 
But we experience much that needs to be corrected and inter- 
preted; much appears to be real that turns out not to be. 
To say that we see the earth to be flat does not prove it flat; 
and to say that we experience space is no proof that space 
really exists apart from all experience. The question, Can 
space and time be regarded as real? means, for the present 
inquiry, Can space and time be thought of coherently as 
objects or realities independent of all minds? We cannot 
deny that they are real for minds without contradicting expe- 
rience; must we likewise assert that they are real apart from 
minds? 
_ Let us consider space first. It seems natural and obvious 
to regard space as real. The things about me, my neighbors’ 
bodies, the Milky Way, are not in my mind; they are “out 
there’’ in space, so many inches, or rods, or light-years from 
me. The dualism of idea and object in knowledge suggests 
that my idea and space itself are two different entities. The 
reality of space seems to be confirmed by the fact that we 
communicate with one another through spatial media and 
share our space-world in common. If I agree to meet you at 
a certain locality in space, you will be there at the time ap- 
pointed. This would seem to indicate an objective space- 
world, independent of you or me. Science points in the same 
direction. _ 

Philosophy is indeed hardy if, despite common sense, 
experience and science, it persists in its question. Many 
great philosophers have nevertheless persisted, and have 


ITS; LIMITATIONS 277 


become convinced that the facts can be better explained if 
space be regarded as empirically or phenomenally real, but 
not as metaphysically or ontologically real. The classic form 
of argument for this position is found in Kant’s antinomy, 
which he expounds in the Critique of Pure Reason. Very 
simply stated, Kant’s position is this: if we start from the 
assumption that the world in space and time is a given 
whole, independent of mind, we are able to prove that such 
a world is self-contradictory. For instance, in what he calls 
“the first conflict of the transcendental ideas,” Kant seeks to 
show that you can prove a thesis and its contradictory antith- 
esis. The thesis is, “The world has a beginning in time, 
and is limited also with regard to space.”’ The antithesis 
is, “The world has no beginning and no limits in space, but 
is infinite with respect both to time and to space.” At present 
we are concerned only with his argument about space. He 
proves the thesis by showing that the conception of an in- 
finite space is self-contradictory; for we can conceive space 
only by perceiving a limited amount of it or by successive 
addition of parts. An infinite whole of space is inconceivable 
because an actual infinite time for the addition of its parts 
is inconceivable. ‘That is, infinite space is something the 
conception of which involves an inconceivability and there- 
fore it cannot be true. But Kant also proves the antithesis. 
The world in space, he argues, cannot be finite; for if it 
were finite we should have to think of limitless space be- 
yond, which would contradict the original assumption that 
the world is a given whole. Hence, since the finiteness of a 
- space-world involves contradiction, the world must be in- 
finite. 

Accordingly Kant believed that he had proved both 
thesis and antithesis. The space-world must be finite and 
it must be infinite; each supposition is necessary and each is 


278 MECHANISM 


impossible. An object that leads to inevitable contradiction 
cannot be a real object, if coherence be the criterion of truth. 
Hence the supposed object, a real world in space, independent 
of mind, cannot exist. The only possibility that remains 
is that space is real in the experience of minds and in no 
other way; that it is the law or form in which all minds 
react to the stimuli from reality, just as acid turns blue litmus 
red. A world of litmus-beings would perceive all acids as 
red; so we perceive all reality as spatial. But acid is not 
truly red, and reality is not truly spatial. 

This conclusion Kant confirms by the “second conflict” 
of the antinomy, which runs as follows. “Thesis: Every 
compound substance in the world consists of simple parts, 
and nothing exists anywhere but the simple or what is com- 
pounded of it. . . . Antithesis: No compound thing in the 
world consists of simple parts, and there exists nowhere in 
the world anything simple.” 

The thesis must be true, for we cannot think of compound 
beings without supposing them made up of simple parts. 
Without parts, no whole. The antithesis is proved by show- 
ing that no simple spatial unity can exist, for everything, no 
matter how small, occupies some space, which, in turn, con- 
sists of parts that may be further divided. Hence the world 
in space must be, yet cannot be, made up of simple parts. 
Here again the inference is that the assumed world in space 
does not exist; and that space is only a form of experience. 

The doctrine of space at which Kant arrived is called the 
ideality or phenomenality of space. It is one that has been 
held by a great many other philosophers, both before and 
since Kant, and other arguments have been adduced that 
tend to the same conclusion. 

Kant has applied similar arguments to time. How can 
time be regarded as something in itself, apart from mind? 


TRANSITION 279 


So conceived, it must be, yet cannot be thought of as having 
a beginning and an end; it must, yet cannot be, thought of 
as infinitely divisible. Hence time cannot be anything “in 
itself”; like space, it must be only a form of conscious experi- 
ence. 

Kant’s position has been subjected to criticism. It does 
not fall within the province of the present discussion to con- 
sider these criticisms. The study of the nature of space is 
one of the most complicated branches of mathematics and 
physics. The effect of Einstein’s theory of relativity and of 
the newer geometries on the Kantian view can hardly be 
estimated at this time. One point, at least, stands out. 
The newer theories deny absolute independent space and 
absolute independent time. Space and time are relative to 
each other and to matter; and perhaps, as Kant thought, to 
the mind. Be that as it may, for the purpose of the present 
discussion it suffices to have shown that an important argu- 
ment against mechanistic philosophy has been found by many 
thinkers in the hypothesis that the real world is not a 
space-time world; and that space-time exists in and for 
minds, not minds in and for space-time.* 

The foundations of mechanistic philosophy are, therefore, 
far less obvious and secure than is often assumed to be the 
case. 


§ 6. TRANSITION TO NEXT CHAPTER 


The present chapter has raised the problem of mechanism 
and teleology, and has discussed the mechanistic philosophy. 


1 For a detailed and critical examination of Kant’s views, the reader 
is referred to N. K. Smith, Commentary on Kant’s Critique of Pura 
Reason, p. 478 ff. A discussion of other arguments for the ideality of 
space and time is found in the chapters on those subjects in Bowne, 
Theory of Thought and Knowledge, and Metaphysics (rev. ed.). 


i 
280 MECHANISM 


It has been shown how reasonable and necessary it is to 
recognize the value of the mechanistic postulates of the 
physical sciences; and how natural it is to universalize these 
postulates and make them the structural principles of our 
metaphysics. It has also been shown that difficulties arise 
when reality as a whole is supposed to be capable of com- 
plete and consistent explanation from the mechanical stand- 
point. May these difficulties be set aside? Are they a 
necessary result of our ignorance? Is any other view 
equally difficult? ; 

The following chapter will consider the possibility of 
teleology as an alternative answer to the riddle of the uni- 
verse. 


CHAPTER IX 


HAS THE WORLD A PURPOSE? 


§1. A RESTATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM OF 
MECHANISM AND TELEOLOGY 


Mechanism has been shown to be a difficult view to 
hold. It does not do justice by the facts of purpose and is 
not internally coherent. Perhaps teleology may turn out 
to be equally difficult. The question still remains, Has the 
world a purpose? Is teleology better able than mechanism 
to interpret the facts of experience? 

The problem can be solved, if at all, only by considering 
the relative ability of the two theories to include and interpret 
all of the facts both of mechanism and of purpose, of things 
and of values, of matter and of mind. 


§2. THE TELEOLOGICAL FACTS 


(1) TELEOLOGICAL FUNCTIONS OF ORGANISMS. The 
properties of living beings have suggested to many minds the 
fitness of a teleological explanation. It has seemed to them 
that the structure and behavior of organisms can be described 
only by appeal to the principle of end or purpose. “An 
organized product of nature,” says Kant, “is one in which 
everything is end and reciprocally also means; nothing in it is 
in vain, nothing purposeless, or to be ascribed to a blind 
mechanism of nature.” * 


1 Kritik der Urieilskraft, p. 296 (Kant’s 2nd and 3d ed.). 
281 


282 TELEOLOGY 


The indications of purpose in organisms are numerous. 
The various parts and functions of any organism, whether 
sand-flea or eagle, lion or man, are such as to adapt the 
organism to its environment. Each part contributes to the 
welfare of the whole organism. Further, nature appears 
to be realizing similar ends by use of widely different means. 
Bergson’s famous comparison of the eye of vertebrates with 
the eye of the common pecten, or scallop, is an illustration 
of this point... The eye of the scallop and the eye of man 
contain the same essential parts with analogous elements; 
yet this fact cannot be explained by the line of evolutionary 
descent, for eyes of this type were developed, as all biologists 
agree, long after the separation of mollusks and vertebrates 
from their common parent stem. How, then, can the similar- 
ity be accounted for? A mechanistic theory of evolution 
might say that two series of purposeless and accidental varia- 
tions had, either gradually (Darwin) or by sudden muta- 
tions (De Vries) at last independently arrived at the eye 
of the mollusc and that of man. But when one takes into 
account the fact that the eye is a complex organ, that each 
part of it is adjusted to the function of the whole, and that 
the parts are useless except in combination, it is difficult to 
understand the result on a mechanistic basis. If the devel- 
oped eye be the outcome of gradual successive variations, 
there is no explanation of why the rudimentary variations 
would survive before all of the necessary variations had oc- 
curred in combination. Or if it be the outcome of a sudden 
mutation, there is no explanation of why all the necessary 
parts should appear at once in mutual coordination. On 
either horn of the dilemma, the similarity of structure and 
function in the two types of eye is an effect without an ade- 
quate cause, a mysterious miracle. There is no explanation 


1 Creative Evolution, pp. 62 ff. 


TELEOLOGICAL FACTS 283 


unless it be granted that there is at work in nature a power 
that is non-mechanistic and that realizes ends. 

Facts like the foregoing have led numerous biologists, 
notably Driesch,’ to advance the hypothesis that the telic 
property of organisms is to be explained by a non-mechan- 
ical principle, known as an entelechy. The entelechy of 
Driesch ’? is the elementary factor that is the true basis of 
heredity and builds the life-form of each new individual. 
It is not material, but uses matter. It is not psychical, yet 
to it are ascribed, and in no “merely figurative fashion,” 
“a primary knowledge and will . . . and the psychological 
concept of teleology.” The theory that explains life in terms 
of such an entelechy is called vitalism. Most biologists 
reject vitalism. It seems to some a corruption of sound 
mechanism; the entelechy is vaguely defined; and it does not 
lend itself to precise scientific use. 

It does not fall within the province of philosophy to 
decide between vitalism and mechanism in biology. Too 
much importance has been attached by some philosophers to 
this debate. The unfortunate impression has been given out 
that the truth of metaphysical teleology stands and falls 
with the truth of vitalism. Biology may find it useful to 
adhere to mechanistic explanation or it may adopt the vital- 
istic entelechy. Whichever it does, the facts of experience 
remain and the distinction between the problem of science 
and that of philosophy remains. If biology decides to be 
mechanistic, the teleological functions of organisms are no — 
less valid as evidence for a teleological metaphysics; and 
should it decide to be vitalistic, the entelechies would not 
settle the question in favor of universal teleology. 


1 Similar theories have been advanced by many, from Aristotle to Berg- 
son. 

2 See Driesch, Philosophie des Organischen, 2nd ed., pp. 220 f., 286, 401, 
461, 582. 


284 TELEOLOGY 


(2) “THE ARRIVAL OF THE Fit.” What Bowne has 
called “the arrival of the fit” is an undoubted fact in bio- 
logical life which is presupposed but not explained by 
mechanistic evolutionary philosophy. In any given line 
of descent variations occur. Some of these are abnormal 
monstrosities, unfitted to survive. Some, however, are not 
only fit to survive but are equipped with new characters 
favorable to survival. Biologists believe that there is a 
tendency in any given line of descent for variations to occur 
in the direction of some saat type. This tendency is called 
orthogenesis. 

It is simple enough on mechanistic principles to account 
for the survival and propagation of a living species that is 
adapted to survive. This simple feat is accomplished by 
naturalistic theories of evolution. It is less simple to explain, 
on consistent mechanistic principles, how there come to 
be any organisms whatever that are fit to survive. The fit, 
of course, will survive; but how do they happen to arrive? 
Science is not compelled to trouble itself about this problem. 
A philosophy that aims to interpret experience as a whole 
must, however, inquire whether there is not here a fact that 
mechanistic philosophy fails to explain. If organisms are the 
product of a power that is capable of foresight and purpose, 
the possibility of the origin of new types of life, related to 
the old, yet better equipped to survive, and adapted to lead 
on to still higher types, becomes less opaque and accidental, 
more intelligible and rational. 

(3) Human EXPERIENCE OF PurRPOsE. It is undeni- 
able that human beings have purposes. Our experience of 
purpose is part of what a true philosophy must explain. 
The mechanist may say that he explains purpose by show- 
ing that it is the result of certain neural stimulations and 
responses. But the mechanistic explanation of purpose is 


TELEOLOGICALREACTS 285 


defective because there is so much more in the fact of purpose 
than there is in the explanation given. Purpose is a genuine 
whole. It is a plan. It looks to the future. The neural 
facts to which the mechanist appeals are not even con- 
scious, much less forward-looking. Even if recourse be had 
to the idea of a psychological mechanism as the explanation 
of purpose, the mechanist would be dealing only with ele- 
ments of consciousness, while purpose is an organic whole 
that cannot be completely described by any analysis into 
elements. The very essence of purpose evades the mecha- 
nist. A view that explains the existence of human purposes 
by appeal to a universal or cosmic purpose is a rational 
attempt to interpret what for the mechanist remains sheer 
mystery. 

(4) THE Spiritual Lire. The term spiritual life is one 
that arouses an intelligible antagonism in many minds. It 
is ambiguous. It has been associated with many obnoxious 
and unspiritual forms of religious belief and experience. It 
would, however, be a serious error to surrender a great realm 
of experience merely because the word that describes it has 
been misused. 

By spiritual life is meant realization of the highest values. 
In view of the interdependence of these values, the true spir- 
itual life is a unity in which all values are grasped as an 
organic whole. The true and the beautiful, the morally good 
and the religiously sacred, are all elements in the spiritual 
life; yet no life is, in the finest sense, spiritual if it devote 
itself exclusively to any one of these values. The chemist 
whose only interest is in chemistry is not spiritual, no matter 
how loyal he may be to chemical truth. The bishop, no 
matter how profound his reverence for the sacred, is not 
spiritual if his interest in religion leads him to ignore truth 
and beauty and character. The spiritual man is a lover of 


286 TELEOLOGY 


all true values and seeks to appreciate and to realize them 
all. 

Now, the spiritual life, even if it be regarded only as a 
mere ideal, is also a fact. It is a fact that the conception 
of an ideal of spiritual integrity exists in many minds, and 
has existed in some form since men began to think. It is 
also a fact that the struggle to attain spiritual life has never 
ceased among men. Seemingly unspiritual facts and men 
abound, too; but it is the assertion and development of the 
Spiritual in an unspiritual environment that is the wonder and 
the hope of human history. The great poets and philos- 
ophers, sages and saints, have lived for the spiritual as they 
understood it. On the cause of the truly spiritual they have 
staked their all; Plato and Paul, Augustine and Spinoza, 
Newton and Hegel, Lincoln and Pasteur—these men have 
differed in many respects, but all have agreed in making the 
spiritual rather than the material their guiding star. Of this 
Matthew Arnold was speaking when he wrote, 


“Know, man hath all which Nature hath, but more, 
And in that more lie all his hopes of good.” 


The spiritual life is important evidence for teleology. This 
is true not merely because the wise and good have believed 
it, but rather because the existence and progressive realiza- 
tion of an ideal of spirituality is as genuine a fact as the 
existence of mud or of earthquakes; and because the spiritual 
life is the sort of reality for which mechanistic philosophy 
has no adequate interpretation. 

Strangely enough, some of the noblest and most beautiful 
expressions of spirituality are found in the writings and lives 
of men whose metaphysical theories are such as to make the 
existence of their own ideal inexplicable. Democritus and 
Hume, Bertrand Russell and George Santayana are illustra- 


TELEOLOGICAL FACTS 287 


tions of this fact. That spiritual life should be in a mecha- 
nistic universe is a brute mystery. There is no basis for 
it in reality as mechanism describes it. If the belief in uni- 
versal purpose expressing itself in spiritual life everywhere, 
stimulating and guiding that life, makes the facts of our 
experience more intelligible than does a mechanistic explana- 
tion, that belief is more coherent and inclusive than mecha- 
nism and hence more adequately true. 

(5) INTERACTION OF MIND AND Bopy. The interaction 
of mind and body is another and different sort of evidence 
for teleology. It is true that the concept of interaction 
is debatable and that the present remarks will appeal only 
to those minds convinced of the truth of interaction. Yet, 
any argument that tends to show the coherence between 
interaction and teleology serves to confirm the truth of each 
hypothesis, if each is compatible with the facts. 

Leaving to one side for the moment the question of what 
“matter” is, it is safe to say that every reasonable mind 
knows what is being talked about when matter is mentioned, 
however hard it may be to define the term. Further, every 
reader of Chapter VI knows why the writer of this book 
regards it as unreasonable to view mind or consciousness as 
identical with matter or with any part or movement of mat- 
ter. Mind surely is no form of what matter seems to our 
senses to be, or of what science takes it to be.* The laws 
of matter, as science expresses them, are statements of the 
way in which matter has always been observed to behave 
and may be depended on to behave under the conditions 
that the laws define. In considering those conditions, how- 
ever, the physicist (from whom the mechanistic philosophy 


1 For the sake of simplicity, the discussion in the text omits considera- 
tion of the admitted fact that there are also psychological mechanisms ; 
but the argument is not thereby affected, for even “mechanical” laws of 
mind are different from those of physics. 


288 TELEOLOGY 


is ultimately derived) takes only matter and its laws into 
account. Mechanism, therefore, gives the truth about the 
universe in so far as the presence of mind as a factor is 
ignored and abstracted from. Minds are, however, actually 
here, as well as matter. The every-day fact of experience 
is that minds cause matter to act as it would not act if 
left to mechanistic forces alone. Likewise it is true that 
the mechanistic forces of matter sometimes have other than 
material consequences, namely, their effect on the mind of 
man. Mind and matter interact. These different systems 
within reality seem completely adjusted to each other. Fur- 
ther, this interaction involves the fact that human purpose 
may utilize physical mechanisms almost indefinitely; may 
express itself through these mechanisms; may make the body 
and the environment an expression of the spiritual life. 

Interaction, therefore, is in two senses evidence for 
teleology. It shows that purpose and mechanism coexist and 
that, within broad limits, human purpose may control 
mechanism. It suggests, also, the consideration that if 
human minds may exercise intelligent control of a mechanical 
environment, it is not unreasonable to believe that a supreme 
mind exercises supreme control over all mechanism. 

(6) NatruraL Law. Natural law is exploited to the full- 
est extent as an argument against teleology. There is better 
reason for regarding natural law as an argument for teleology. 
Science itself has, or should have, no metaphysics, either 
mechanistic or teleological. It is concerned only to describe, 
analyze, and correlate the observed facts within the field of 
its investigation. By a vigorous resolve of will the man of 
science may commit himself to an exclusively scientific atti- 
tude, and abjure all interest in the profounder questions of 
philosophy. He is then, like August Comte, a positivist, 
confined to a description of certain orders in experience. 


TELEOLOGICAL FACTS 289 


The mechanist, however, goes much further and holds that 
this description is ultimate metaphysical reality. 

The human mind will not permanently submit to the 
regimen of an intellectual asceticism. Any theory, like posi- 
tivism, that forbids man to ask real questions about real 
matters of fact will forever be in unstable equilibrium. 
Hence, a merely descriptive or positivistic account of natural 
laws will never satisfy thought. Just as thought in physics 
presses on in the study of the constitution of matter, and is 
not satisfied with the atom until it is analyzed into protons 
and electrons; and again will not be satisfied with protons 
and electrons until they can be analyzed or reduced to some 
common entity; so metaphysical thought will not be satisfied 
until some formula is found which reasonably interprets the 
interrelations of all the laws of science. 

To success in the high enterprise of metaphysics at least 
one factor is essential. Metaphysics must not merely say, 
This law is true, that law is true. It must suggest some 
principle that interprets how any universal law and how 
many such laws in relation to each other can be true. 
Light, science tells us, travels about 186,000 miles a second; 
all light, everywhere, we believe, conforms to this law. If 
this or some analogous fact is the last word that thought can 
find to say about the speed of light, we have solved many 
important problems. But the solution itself is a mystery. 
Why should light be eternally faithful to itself? Why should 
it always travel as though it knew mathematics? Why 
should its laws interplay with those of electricity and gravita- 
tion? They do, and there’s an end on’t, say positivist and 
mechanist. The teleologist, however, seeks a more con- 
nected, a more coherent view of the universe. He sees in the 
laws of light and of all forms of energy the expression of 
an eternal rational purpose. Purpose, as we know by our 


290 TELEOLOGY 


finite experience, performs the function of unifying and 
organizing complex details, whether of the inner life or of 
the environment, and making every detail serve an end. 
Purpose is a real fact which is also a principle of totality, a 
spirit dwelling everywhere in a collection of particulars 
through which alone they have meaning. To say that a book 
expresses the purpose of its author is a more rational explana- 
tion of its meaning than to say that it was set up by a lino- 
type machine. If we regard the laws of light and all laws 
of matter as the manifestation of the purpose of a supreme 
reason, we cannot pretend thereby to have solved every 
problem; but we may well maintain that we have dealt more 
reasonably, that is, more coherently, with the evidence of 
natural law than has the mechanistic metaphysician. 


§3. OBJECTIONS TO TELEOLOGY 


It might be said that the objections to teleology have al- 
ready been investigated in the previous chapter. Every 
argument for mechanism is an argument against teleology; 
and every defect or difficulty in the arguments for teleology 
is an argument against it. Nevertheless, it may be that 
some important points have not come to light in the fore- 
going treatments. A systematic examination of the objec- 
tions to teleology will perhaps serve as a check on our pre- 
vious results. 

(1) THE LocicaL OBjEcTION.t The logical objection 
runs as follows. Teleology argues that mechanism is not 
metaphysically adequate, and substitutes for the principle of 
mechanical cause the principle of purpose, which finds the 


1 The nomenclature and parts of the argument in the first four objec” 
tions are taken from William Stern, Person und Sache, Vol. I, pp. 251: 


253- 


OBJECTIONS 291 


true explanation of the present in the future, in the ends yet 
to be realized. Now, says the critic, this is logically absurd. 
It means that the non-existent future explains the existent 
present. ‘“Teleology is a paradox.” 

The teleologist, however, does not admit that this argu- 
ment is final. He may point out that there is a somewhat 
analogous difficulty in mechanism; for the past, to which it 
appeals, is as non-existent as is the future! Mechanism 
also explains the existent in terms of the non-existent. The 
paradoxical character of teleology (and of mechanism) arises, 
evidently, from the nature of time. If time be regarded as 
real in itself apart from mind, it may be that teleology is 
paradoxical. But if the true nature of both time and pur- 
pose be revealed in personality, nothing is clearer and 
less paradoxical than the fact that personal consciousness 
can anticipate in plan and intent that which is not yet real 
in the world of nature. As long as we think materialistically, 
or ‘‘on the impersonal plane,” as Bowne put it, the paradox 
remains. As soon as we think ‘on the personal plane,’ it 
vanishes. Physically it is impossible for two things to be 
in the same place at the same time, or for the future to 
be present; in personal experience, it is an every-day matter 
for the minds of two persons to think about the same place 
at the same time, or for thought about the future or past to 
be present. 

(2) THE ETIOLOGICAL OBJECTION. The etiological 
objection is made on behalf of the law of cause and effect. 
Every event may be completely expiained as an effect of 
preceding events, says the mechanist. For purpose to direct 
any event would involve a lawless intrusion into the order of 
law. ‘‘Teleology would be a miracle.” 

This objection, however, begs the question. Assuming 
that mechanical explanation is the only valid type, it goes on 


292 TELEOLOGY 


to say that there is no room for teleology if mechanism has 
already occupied the entire field. This is fairly obvious. 
The teleologist would refute the etiological argument by 
reference to the objections to mechanism (Chapter VIII) and 
to the evidence for teleology. 

(3) Tur DysTELEOLOGICAL OBJECTION. Teleology is 
the theory that there is purpose in the universe. Dystel- 
eology calls attention to the many facts that appear to 
serve either no purpose or conflicting purposes What is 
the purpose of Job’s boils, or of the World War, or of the 
Japanese earthquake of 1923, or of the American Senate 
of 1924? Here we have the problem of evil. There are 
facts that seem to point to purpose. There are as many or 
more facts that seem to point to an indifferent or malevolent 
universe. To select the teleological facts while ignoring the 
dysteleological is to deceive oneself. ‘“Teleology is an 
illusion.” 

It must be admitted that this argument is the most serious 
objection to a teleological metaphysics. That it is not fatal 
is indicated by the following considerations.’ 

Life as it faces us is full of apparent contradictions, which 
it is the task of thought to solve. It is never safe to take 
appearance for reality. Neither things nor persons are what 
they seem at first sight to be. The world of our sensations 
and the world of physical science are very different. The 
world of sense is chaos. The world of physics is law. The 
wind seems to blow where it listeth. Really it blows in ac- 
cordance with the little-understood laws of anemology. All 
truth is a solution of the riddles given in immediate experi- 
ence. This is supremely the case with metaphysical truth. 
It is self-evident that our experience, as it comes, seems to 
be a strange confusion of purposive and purposeless events. 

1See Chapter V, § 13. 


OBJECTIONS 293 


Teleology offers itself as a coherent explanation of all these 
facts of experience. It cannot be refuted by proof that there 
are contradictions in purpose-experience any more than 
physics can be refuted by showing that there are contradic- 
tions in our sense-experience. 

It must also be remembered that there are objections to 
every possible theory. The teleologist holds that there is 
less relative objection to his view than to any other. 

Experience seems to suggest that the world has a mixed 
purpose, if any; but the intellect seeks a coherent explana- 
tion of experience, and cannot accept apparent contradic- 
tion at its full face-value. Pessimists have sometimes held 
that the universe was realizing evil ends, relentlessly thwart- 
ing, or at least ignoring, value and goodness. This means 
that the apparent good in life is interpreted in terms of the 
evil. For the pessimist, the difficult problem is not the 
existence of evil, but the existence of good. How can it be 
that there is so much good in an evil universe? How comes 
it that the spiritual life has endured for centuries and 
has never been extinguished? The problem of evil is dif- 
ficult; but so is the problem of good. 

The alternative theory that appeals to most contemporary 
philosophers who reject teleology is the theory of a neutral 
or indifferent universe. According to this view, reality is 
unconscious and purposeless. Men and their purposes have 
been produced by an order of being that has no plans or 
intentions. For this view, it is absurd to ask about the prob- 
lem of evil or to inquire into metaphysical teleology. The 
whole problem of the purpose of human existence is laughed 
out of court or waved to one side with a graceful natural- 
istic gesture. For contemporary naturalism, positivism, and 
mechanism, good and purpose are facts of human nature, but 
they mean nothing to the power that causes the world. This 


294 TELEOLOGY 


solution, however, seems to be too easy-going. It evades 
facts. It is a flight from reality. It ignores the objective 
evidence for design in nature and sets off human purpose too 
sharply from the rest of the universe. Bertrand Russell’s 
universe, for instance, leaves Bertrand Russell’s zeal for 
social idealism unexplained. The teleologist, therefore, may 
appeal to the fact that other possible views are more diffi- 
cult than his own, and that his meets the objections that 
theirs fail to meet. 

It is true that there are, as the dysteleologist urges, many 
facts that seem to serve no purpose or an evil one. Never- 
theless,,the teleologist may reply that many, if not all, of the 
evils of life can be seen to serve some purpose. As scientific 
progress goes on, the range of reality that is seen to serve 
or to be capable of serving the ends of human life is being 
indefinitely increased. Often we experience use from the use- 
less and good from the evil. Out of suffering grows strength; 
out of frustration, patience; out of sin itself, increased zeal 
for righteousness. It is true that there are cruel and sordid 
evils, the purpose of which is far from clear; yet to confess 
that some problems are unsolved is not to prove them in- 
soluble. For many of the ills of life there is no clear-cut 
theoretical solution. Yet if man meets those ills that he 
cannot understand with the best there is in him, he is capa- 
ble, within limits, of making all things work together for 
good. The spiritual progress of humanity pushes these 
limits farther and farther out. If the race were to bear its 
due share of responsibility, faithfully striving for the pos: 
sible best, the cosmic enterprise would be more successful. 
Yet it remains true that cyclones and earthquakes, heredity, 
and the insecure and petty place of man in cosmic space are 
not caused by man. These facts entail ills that man may 
never fully control. 


OBJECTIONS 295 


Reality, then, is not exactly as we should like it. But 
the object of philosophy is not to describe the world as we 
wish it were; philosophy is concerned only with the facts 
and values of the world as it is. Taking the world as it is, 
even the pessimist must grant that it is fairly well adapted 
to the development of strong character and initiative in 
man. At any rate, it is better fitted to be a gymnasium for 
violent exercise than to be a bed of roses for indolence. It 
is, on the whole, a stimulus, not an opiate. It is a world in 
which “we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better”; a world 
better for the brave than for the coward. It is such a world 
as leads the idealistic poet to 


“Welcome each rebuff © 
That turns earth’s smoothness rough, 
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand, but go!” 


Every corner grocery contains experts who could improve 
the universal scheme. Not only so, but broken hearts and 
tortured bodies often find no meaning in their suffering. 
A Helmholtz announces that he would consider himself a 
failure could he not make a better optical instrument than 
the human eye. Be we foolish or be we wise, our ways and 
the ways of the universe are not one. There is a tragic 
discrepancy between what we desire and what we are able 
to find. Yet it remains true that the mystery of life is not 
so utterly dark but that some meaning can be found wherever 
there is a mind able to meet circumstances with ideals. The 
world is not adapted to much that we yearn for; it is adapted 
to be the scene of a slow and severe, but greatly rewarding, 
development of character and thus of the other values. 

All that has been said in answer to the dysteleological 
objection has, the reader will note, been expressed with 
reservations. The problem of evil admits of no final, no 


296 TELEOLOGY 


completely enlightening solution. For every honest mind 
that seeks to reconcile the evidence for purpose in the uni- 
verse with the facts of evil, there remains the confession, 
“T do not understand it all.” The teleologist would, how- 
ever, say that every theory of the meaning of life contains 
some problems that the human mind has not been able to 
solve. He would add that teleology not only explains a 
wider range of facts than any other theory, but it offers a 
more reasonable hypothesis regarding what is still un- 
explained. If the purpose of the universe originates in a 
Supreme Mind, it is evident that a finite and temporal mind 
could hardly be expected to read the whole riddle. If the 
purpose of the universe be eternal, it could not be fully 
expressed at any one time nor even in the whole period of 
past human history. A man could not completely express 
his life purpose in a single act or in any series of acts 
short of his whole life; how much less could the Eternal 
express his whole plan in a fragment of time! Further, if 
the purpose of the Eternal be cosmic, how unreasonable it 
would be to suppose that every fact in the universe was 
intended solely for human convenience! The human individ- 
ual should recognize that society does not exist for him alone, 
but that he, in part at least, exists for society; so also the 
human race should acknowledge that the universe does not 
exist for it alone. A large part of the destiny of man may 
consist in his recognition of this fact. He will find himself 
when he loses himself; when he ceases to make his feelings 
and desires the criterion of the cosmic plan and learns to 
seek the objective truth, to serve the universal order, and 
to submit to his lot as a small part of this great universe. 

A critic might, however, object to the foregoing argument 
on the ground that it is what the logic books call the fallacy 
of argumentum ad ignorantiam. It seeks, so the critic might 


OBJECTIONS 297 


say, to support teleology on the ground that we do not know 
what the infinite and eternal purpose is, but nevertheless we 
“faintly trust the larger hope’ that when the universe 
bears heavily on human life it may nevertheless be serving 
the purpose X. Appeal to X, to what we do not know, is 
an insecure foundation on which to rear a metaphysics. 

Such criticism leaves out of account the evidence on which 
the teleological view is based. If there were no evidence for 
teleology other than the ills of human life and the hope that 
the cosmic purpose might somehow redress them or be real- 
izing through them extra-human values, its case would be 
weak indeed. There exists, however, considerable positive 
evidence for teleology. There is positive reason for believing 
that there is superhuman purpose in our world; and there is 
equally positive reason for believing that we do not know 
all there is to know about that purpose. ‘Therefore the 
argument now under consideration is an attempt not to infer 
knowledge from ignorance, but rather to show that our 
partial knowledge of purpose implies larger purposes of 
which we are ignorant. The argument, then, is not falla- 
cious. 

(4) THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL OBJECTION. The fourth 
and last argument against teleology (according to Stern) 
is the anthropological. This objection is very familiar. It 
urges that the whole idea of purpose or end is derived from 
~ human psychology, and that only human conceit would make 
bold to read the cosmic process in terms analogous to 
human experience. 

It is true that teleology (and all idealistic philosophy) 
interprets reality from clews found in human experience. 
It is also true that all thinking about reality must do this 
very thing. The common-sense realist and the materialist 
think that reality is like some of their sense-perceptions; the 


298 TELEOLOGY 


romanticist finds reality analogous to his emotions; the 
natural scientist holds that it is like certain theoretical models 
grasped by his conceptual thought processes. All thinking, 
then, is unavoidably anthropomorphic. A theory is not false 
because it is based on human experience. Indeed it would 
be patently false if it ignored that experience or if it be 
an unreasonable reading of it. 

Another aspect of the anthropological objection is often 
urged. It is argued that man is so insignificant and the 
universe so vast that if there be a cosmic purpose, man’s 
place in that purpose must be negligible. What is man 
compared to the solar system, the stellar universe, and pos- 
sible universes beyond? Herbert Spencer and other thinkers 
have been impressed by this thought. A distinguished astron- 
omer has suggested that if the solar system were in the 
center of the universe, it might be in order to regard man 
as an object of interest to universal purpose; but since it 
is not central, teleology is disproved. Thus does a great 
Scientist naively make size and location the criterion of 
value! 

Man, it is true, is insignificant in space and time. But 
space and time are not the criterion of purpose or value. 
Value is an experience of conscious personality. The place 
of personality in the realm of ends is not to be determined 
by the space that man’s body occupies or by the time that 
elapsed before he was born, but rather by the values that 
he is capable of realizing. If he can apprehend truth and 
goodness and beauty, his life has a purpose and value that 
could never be attributed to infinite stretches of space in 
which no mind existed. Further, it should be remembered 
that the existence of astronomical space and time is a fact 
that man’s mind is capable of knowing. The “anthropo- 
logical” argument, then, does not refute teleology. 


OBJECTIONS 299 


(5) THE EvoLuTIoNARY OBJECTION. Stern’s four 
points do not exhaust what has been said against teleology, 
although he regards the list as complete. The theory of 
evolution is believed by many to have destroyed the possi- 
bility of a teleology. Before modern evolutionary theory 
developed, it was generally held that every species of organic 
life was due to a special act of divine creation. Every organ 
and function that adapted life to its environment was 
regarded as evidence of design. The theory of evolution has 
rejected the “special creation” theory in favor of the view 
that regards all forms of life as blood-relatives, the more 
complex and highly developed being ‘‘descended”’ from the 
simpler and lower types. Evolution has also explained the 
adaptations to environment by the theory of natural selection. 
Natural selection is based on the fact that among the off- 
spring of any parents there are some better adapted to sur- 
vive than others. Those that are adapted to survive do sur- 
vive, and pass on their biological characters to following 
generations. The non-adapted perish. Hence present 
adaptations are not the work of a creator who made organ- 
isms as they are, fully equipped for the battle of life, but 
they are the result of a sifting-process, which involves the 
apparently aimless birth and destruction of countless mal- 
adjusted or poorly equipped organisms. Thus evolution ap- 
peared to be unfriendly to teleology. 

In another direction evolution seemed to undermine belief 
in a world-purpose. Traditional philosophy and theology 
had usually regarded the purpose or purposes embodied in 
the universe as eternal and unchanging. The realm of 
Platonic Ideas, or the mind of God, or Substance, or whatever 
enjoyed high standing in the philosophic world, was indeed 
sublime, holy, “numinous”; but it was static. Its sole busi- 
ness was to be; it was above beginning and becoming, change 


300 TELEOLOGY 


and time. The theory of evolution has laid rude hands upon 
this ark. It sees in change and growth and the emergence 
of genuine novelties the most characteristic features of our 
world. If evolution be true, the reality that embodies itself 
in the world-process cannot be eternally static. This has led 
some, notably Bergson, to the opinion that there can be no 
eternal world-plan. It must be admitted that many philo- 
sophical descriptions of God and the Absolute are notoriously 
difficult to relate to the empirical facts of life. 

Granted that the notion of an absolutely timeless and 
unchanging purpose fails to do full justice by the facts of 
experience, it does not necessarily follow that mechanism is 
our only alternative. Bergson, for example, is even more 
hostile to mechanism than to “‘finalism,” as he calls teleology. 
The chief arguments against mechanism are unaffected by 
the evolutionary view. Indeed, evolution, rightly interpreted, 
adds much to the case against mechanism. What is needed 
in the face of the evolutionary facts is not a return to mecha- 
nism but a better conception of teleology. 

It may be that less radical change is needed than might 
appear at first sight. Heraclitus, the first great philosopher 
of change, taught that everything changes except the 
“logos,” or law of change. An adequate philosophy of evolu- 
tion must reconcile change with permanent law. There 
must be place for real growth, real novelty, ““emergent evolu- 
tion,” in our universe; yet there must be coherence, reason, 
meaning, purpose, in the whole process. Many traditional 
formule have severed these two demands and have satis- 
fied the one at the expense of the other. If we examine the 
reality that is most intimately present to us, our own per- 
sonality, we find there an illustration of how change and 
identity, novelty and law, time and transcendence of time, 
are realized at once in concrete unity. Here we have the 


OBJECTIONS 301 


clew that gives rise to the metaphysical hypothesis of per- 
sonalism. If the ultimate reality is a person, indefinite 
variety and change in detail are compatible with a funda- 
mental law that all change and time must obey if any 
rational order is to be in the universe. A person of creative 
energy, of infinite patience, and with plenty of time is a con- 
ception not without difficulty itself; but it appears to the 
present writer to come nearer to solving the problem than 
any substitute that has been devised. 

Thus we arrive at an evolutionary, personalistic teleology. 
Through it, the “arrival of the fit” becomes intelligible. 
While it banishes the notion of petty, meddling interventions 
on the part of deity, it opens new vistas of cosmic codperation 
and divine patience; it points to consciousness and spiritual 
life as the goal of evolution,’ and furnishes modern intima- 
tions of immortality. 

(6) Tue Positivistic OspjectTion. A different sort of 
objection has come from thinkers of a positivistic turn. 
They are fundamentally opposed to any metaphysics, 
whether mechanistic or teleological. They would confine the 
task of knowledge to the description of observed uniformi- 
ties. If mechanical relations are found to obtain among the 
objects of experience, well and good; if certain adaptations 
exist, certain ends are realized, also well and good. But, the 
positivist will say, why leave these experienced facts for an 
expedition into metaphysical speculation? A positivist like 
Auguste Comte may go so far as to admit that if we are 
going to have a metaphysics, the hypothesis of intelligent 
will—that is, personalistic teleology—is preferable to 
mechanism.? But all metaphysical speculation, no matter 
how plausible, is abhorrent to the positivist. 


1 See Mathews in the Yale Review, Jan. 1921. 
2See A General View of Positivism, p. 50, quoted in Bowne’s Theism, 
Pp. 73. 


302 TELEOLOGY 


This standpoint rests on the assumption that there is less 
difficulty in positivism than in metaphysics. It is true that 
there is a great deal of difficulty in metaphysics; and it is 
true that positivism seems to be simpler and less artificial 
than any metaphysical system. It seems intellectually hum- 
ble. But the student of philosophy who faces the problem 
of truth, or of knowledge, or of universals, or of conscious- 
ness, will be inclined to think that the positivist reaches his 
paradise by fleeing from reality and by evading the problems 
in his own position. 

If one ignores the problems and refuses to acknowledge 
that they are given in the very warp and woof of experience, 
one may be a positivist; but if one faces the need of giving a 
coherent account of all the facts, one is forced into meta- 
physics. Indeed, the mind confronts the alternative: solip- 
sism or metaphysics. Positivism seems to be a refuge only 
to him who does not desire to see all the facts in their 
relations, and who evades the problems occasioned by the 
presence of mechanisms and organisms in the same world. 
We are driven by the logic of coherence beyond the stream 
of consciousness as it comes to the reconstruction of experi- 
ence in the special sciences; and beyond positivistic science 
to the metaphysical interpretation of experience taken as a 
whole. However precise an investigation may be within its 
own field, the work of thought is not done until this field 
is set in relation to all other fields; and when this is done, 
metaphysics is present. That the task of thought is hard 
or that men do not agree about how to accomplish it is a 
stimulus to human thought rather than a permanent inhi- 
bition. The positivistic objection, therefore, is one that 
arises from weariness rather than from the nature of 
thought. 

(7) Tur AcNnostic OpjecTion. In a sense positivism 


OBJECTIONS 303 


is agnostic; but agnosticism has another sort of objection 
to file. The spectator of the debate between mechanism and 
teleology might take the view that all of the arguments for 
teleology are ingenious and plausible, but they come to noth- 
ing for one sufficient reason: they are not able to answer the 
question, What is the purpose of the universe? To say that 
the universe has a purpose, but I know not what it is, may 
be a statement of fact. It is not an interpretation of experi- 
ence. To pretend, on the other hand, that one knows the 
purpose of the universe is magnificent, but it is not philos- 
ophy. In either case teleology is futile. 

The agnostic is partly right. To appeal to the principle 
of purpose and to profess complete ignorance of the pur- 
pose at stake is an empty gesture. Is it, however, clear that 
it is utterly unreasonable to say that we have some knowledge 
about the purpose of the universe? ‘To dismiss all claims 
to such knowledge by the use of derogatory epithets is not 
enlightening. To call them pretentious or speculative proves 
nothing. 

All serious enterprises of thought are speculative. For 
the historian to assert that in A. D. 1925 he is able to 
describe truly much of what happened in 1925 B. C. is, 
when one considers all that is involved, a pretentious claim 
of human reason. The science of astronomy, the theory of 
relativity, the every-day assertion that we know that other 
minds than our own exist are all pretentious in the sense that 
they involve many assumptions and assert knowledge of 
what we can never experience directly. But they are justi- 
fied because they start with the evidence given in our experi- 
ence and construe it reasonably. 

Perhaps philosophy may be justified, by parity of reason- 
ing, in laying claim to a partial but real knowledge of the 
purpose of the universe. Our experience reveals what the 


304 TELEOLOGY 


universe is doing in our neighborhood. If the evidence for 
teleology be valid, this world of our experience must be 
an expression of what the universe intends. If so, it may 
at least be said that it is the purpose of the universe that 
there should be a developing order in which consciousness 
should arise and human persons should discover and realize 
the values of life. The development of consciousness and 
its values is the highest end of which we are able to form 
a conception; be our theory what it may, the universe is 
actually engaged in realizing this end. Whatever else the 
Eternal may have in hand, this is the highest we know of; 
and the patient development of a free society of persons 
constantly growing and achieving, albeit in an essentially 
tragic world, is an end not unworthy the aspiration of a 
God. Here we find ourselves face to face with the prob- 
lem of religion, the further treatment of which will be post- 
poned to the following chapter. 


8 4. REVIEW OF THE POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS OF 
THE PROBLEM 


The case for and against both mechanism and teleology 
has now been surveyed. Considerations of method have 
taught us the advantages of a synoptic view of any problem. 
At this point, therefore, there will be introduced a brief 
review of the possible attitudes that thought may take in 
the presence of the evidence. These attitudes are (1) posi- 
tivism, (2) ultimate mechanism, (3) a dualism of mecha- 
nism and teleology, (4) pragmatic skepticism, and (5) ulti- 
mate teleology. 

(1) Positivism is the refusal to think about metaphysical 
problems. It washes its hands of the whole controversy. It 
wishes to be neutral in thought and action in the presence 


POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS 305 


of the profoundest problem of human destiny. The defects 
of this position have already been discussed. 

(2) Ultimate mechanism is the view that grows out of 
the belief that the methods and categories of physical science 
tell us the fundamental truth about our experience as a 
whole. For the mechanistic view the teleological facts are 
all to be regarded as accidental; they are to be explained on 
mechanistic principles as due to mere chance. Every page 
of Shakespeare, of Dante, and the Bible, and the whole 
of civilization, are viewed as the inevitable but unintended 
outcome of a universe which, in the last analysis, is nothing 
but the motions of unconscious material particles. 

(3) The dualism of mechanism and teleology is a position 
taken by many great thinkers. This point of view regards 
the evidence for mechanism as being irrefutable, for the 
sciences both presuppose and demonstrate it. It also regards 
the evidence for teleology as irrefutable, for experience shows 
beyond doubt that ends are realized in nature and by man. 
Hence this view regards each as equally true; each as uni- 
versally valid; but neither as superior to the other. This 
dualism has been expressed in different ways. Each is said 
to be ‘‘a point of view” for interpreting experience,—mecha- 
nism true of phenomena, teleology of noumena; or mecha- 
nism is wholly valid in the world of nature, teleology in the 
world of mind. 

This position is attractive. It seems to be a convenient 
resting-place for thought and compromises the quarrel be- 
tween the contending parties by granting that both litigants 
are right. The solution appeals to men of science, who feel 
that it leaves science supreme in its field yet opens a way 
for the recognition of purpose and value in life. 

There is, however, one serious objection to this dualism. 
It ignores the fact that a mind is a unity, and that all the 


306 TELEOLOGY 


ideas in a mind must be on speaking terms with each other. 
The question of the relation between what we think about 
the mechanisms and what we think about the ends must 
arise. Not only is the mind a unity, but the universe itself 
is in some sense a unity; at least it is unified enough for 
the mechanisms and the purposes of life to be intertwined. 
Our world is an interacting order. If, however, any part of 
it, as phenomena, or nature, is wholly ruled by mechanical 
law, there is no room in that part for the action of the laws 
of purpose. Yet if experience and reason show anything, it 
is that body and mind, phenomena and noumena, mechanism 
and purpose, must be interpreted as affecting one another. 

The assertion that each is true in its own field is too 
blandly abstract, too artificial. It is inadequate to account 
for the actual processes of life in which mechanism limits 
purpose, and purpose, within limits, uses mechanism. 

(4) Pragmatic skepticism is a name that may be used to 
describe Vaihinger’s philosophy of the “As If.” Like the 
dualists just described, Vaihinger feels the force of the argu- 
ment for both positions; but he also feels the force of the 
objections to dualism. So strong do the arguments seem to 
him, that he is unwilling with the positivist to wash his hands 
of the whole matter; but so strong do the objections seem to 
him that he is unwilling to commit himself either to mecha- 
nism or to teleology. In this awkward impasse, Vaihinger 
takes refuge in the formula that we must act and think “as 
if” both mechanism and teleology were true, without yielding 
belief to either or to any combination of both. Each is use- 
ful, neither is true,—a formula well described by the name 
pragmatic skepticism. 

The ‘as if” mood is one into which a ripe scholar like 
Vaihinger may fall, to say nothing of the perplexed beginner. 
It has the advantage of being undogmatic; of being open 


ee 
“MSY 


CONSCIOUS OR UNCONSCIOUS PURPOSE? 307 


to the facts in all directions; and thus of being catholic and 
inclusive in spirit. Yet it is a counsel of despair and should 
be accepted only if it can be definitely shown that every 
other position is impossible. 

(5) Ultimate teleology remains to be examined. Perhaps 
Socrates was right when, after listening to the mechanistic 
theories that Anaxagoras was expounding, he found them 
insufficient to explain his own experience of loyalty to the 
laws of Athens, and said, “I thought that I had better have 
recourse to the world of mind and seek there the truth of 
existence.” * 

The fundamental basis for the claim of teleology to be the 
truth about reality is this: that mechanism leaves the teleo- 
logical facts unexplained, while teleology not only includes 
the facts that mechanism omits, but also includes and inter- 
prets mechanism itself. If this claim can be made good, 
teleology will be shown to be the most coherent, and therefore 
the truest, philosophy. 


§ 5. PURPOSE AS CONSCIOUS OR UNCONSCIOUS 


Before the high claim of teleology is further tested, it is 
well to clear up, if possible, an important ambiguity in the 
meaning of purpose. Up to the present in our discussion, 
the question has not been clearly raised whether teleology 
means any realization of ends, conscious or unconscious; or 
whether it is restricted to conscious purpose. 

It is evident that the human organism carries out many 
habitual, instinctive, and reflex acts that are not consciously 
intended at the time by the person; yet many of these acts 
are teleological in that they serve biological or other ends. 
Much of the evidence for teleology is drawn from sub-human 

1 Phaedo, 99D, tr. Jowett. 


308 TELEOLOGY 


forms of organic life, in which the presence of conscious 
purpose is doubtful, and from the adaptations between life 
and the inorganic environment. Inorganic nature certainly 
seems to be unconscious. The influence of “suppressed 
desires,’ subconscious suggestion, and the like over our 
normal consciousness has been demonstrated by psychology. 
Hence the interpretation of the world as energy or will 
without conscious purpose has come to expression in various 
thinkers, as Schopenhauer, von Hartmann, Bergson, and 
some of the psychoanalysts. 

It is, however, very difficult to see the interpretative value 
of the concept of purpose when it is conceived apart from 
consciousness. Conscious purpose represents the future in 
the present, foresees, transcends time, and thus possesses 
properties that are clearly foreign to the principle of mecha- 
nism. Unconscious purpose is a concept from which almost 
everything that is significant has been stripped; it cannot 
foresee the future, it does not transcend time, it gropes 
blindly toward its goal. The difference between unconscious 
purpose and mechanism is negligible. An interesting illus- 
tration of this fact is found in the way Bergson vacillates 
between the vis a tergo and conscious purpose in describing 
his élan vital. 

The only advantage of unconscious purpose is that it calls 
attention to numerous facts that point toward a teleological 
explanation. Like mechanism, however, it explains purpose 
in terms of no-purpose, the present in terms of the past. 
It is a mere label for the fact that mechanisms realize ends. 
Unconscious purpose may be useful as a concept in psychol- 
ogy, biology, sociology and other special sciences, where no 
“ultimate”? explanation is needed; but it is not enlightening 
in metaphysics, where coherence is demanded. 

If the universe is the functioning of conscious purpose, it 


PLACE OF MECHANISM 309 


would be reasonable to suppose that a particular human 
individual might be caused by the Supreme Purpose to do cer- 
tain acts which he, as an individual, did not intend. The 
Universal Purpose might well consciously intend that reason- 
able ends be attained in the life of a plant or in the constitu- 
tion of inorganic matter, without giving to plants or in- 
organic matter an individual personality or power of con- 
scious choice. Such is the hypothesis of personalism, which 
interprets the existence of the whole universe as an expres- 
sion of the purpose of One Supreme Person. Personalism 
asserts that its principles embody, more reasonably than any 
other hypothesis, the facts of “unconscious purpose” and 
of mechanism. Such an assertion has been implicitly de- 
fended throughout this volume. It remains to consider 
whether personalistic teleology can do full justice by the facts 
of mechanism. 


§6. THE PLACE OF MECHANISM IN A 
TELEOLOGICAL UNIVERSE 


Can teleology explain mechanism more reasonably than 
mechanism can explain teleology? An affirmative answer to 
this question does not imply that mechanistic laws or empir- 
ical facts can be deduced from any teleological formula. 
It means only that all the facts of the world of our experi- 
ence, as given,—if indeed it be “given’”—and as-interpreted 
by mind, can be understood more coherently if we accept 
seriously the view that this is a universe of purpose. To 
say that this is a universe of purpose means that everything 
that is is In some sense a manifestation of purpose; that noth- 
ing is real save purposing beings, namely, persons. In such 
a universe there is a Supreme Person and such other persons 
as his purpose may will to exist; physical nature is real only 


310 TELEOLOGY 


as the concrete functioning of the purpose of the Supreme 
Person;* universals and values are the laws of his purposing. 
Some of the reasons for this position are as follows. 

(1) MrecHANICAL LAws THE EXPRESSION OF PURPOSE. 
Machines made by man embody purpose. Man’s purpose 
may use the mechanisms of nature for subduing her to human 
ends. It is at least possible that the whole system of mechan- 
ical laws may serve the divine purpose as the system of laws 
in a watch serves human purpose. This view is what is 
commonly called the immanence of God in nature. It means 
that all the laws of science are more or less adequate ac- 
counts of the modes of divine procedure. Evolution, for 
example, is thus simply God’s way of working, his method of 
realizing purpose. 

It must, however, be admitted that if the mechanistic 
laws were the whole truth about nature and were merely 
labeled ‘‘divine purpose,” we should have gained nothing for 
coherent thinking. 

(2) MrecHanistic LAws ONLty RELATIVELY TRUE. 
Mechanistic laws are true, as we have seen, only under 
abstract, hypothetical conditions. They are not and do 
not pretend to be a complete and concrete explanation of 
nature, either physical or psychic. Within the system of 
nature there are the teleological facts, such as “the arrival 
of the fit” and the interaction of mind and body. Given 
conformity to certain ideally defined conditions, the mechan- 
ical law is obeyed. But many of the conditions, such as the 
origin of consciousness and its values, are given by the uni- 


1It would also be consistent with the general position of personalism 
to view matter as made up of “monads,” 7. e., centers of will-energy or 
elementary selves, related to the Supreme Person as are human persons. 
James Ward, and others influenced by Leibniz, incline to this position. 
The evidence for self-determination on the part of matter does not seem 
to the present writer to warrant this. 


PLACE OF MECHANISM 311 


verse in a non-mechanical way. Hence mechanical law is 
not absolute, but relative to the rest of the universe. 

(3) Tuts View 1s THAT OF SCIENCE. Science, when 
true to her ideal, does not pretend to be philosophy. Every 
science deals with a portion of reality, abstracted from the 
rest. Its laws are true for its field considered apart from 
the rest of the universe. Science can describe the military 
uses of chemicals, but cannot predict or interpret what the 
rest of the universe (human purpose in particular) will do 
with the properties described. The laws of these properties 
are what they are, says our relativity-conception; but no 
mechanical account can tell how those properties are going 
to relate to the destinies of the human race. Reality con- 
tains the realms in which mechanical explanation is valid. 
It contains so much more that it cannot be fully defined in 
terms of mechanism. 

(4) TELEOLOGY ExpLaAINs Facts OMITTED BY 
MecuHanism. If the world be regarded as an expression 
of purpose, the qualitative variety of our experience, our 
feelings, experienced colors and sounds, from which mecha- 
nism abstracts, may be viewed as serving esthetic or moral or 
religious ends. The fact of novelty or “emergent evolution” 
finds an interpretation in the unitary plan of the Supreme 
Person, a plan that accounts for novelties more reasonably 
than mechanism; for mechanism cannot account for them at 
all! A place is obviously found in a purposive universe for 
the properties of organic wholes which cannot be explained 
in terms of their parts. The difficulties of space and time 
are solved by a view that sees that space and time them- 
selves are dependent on and meaningless apart from a 
world-purpose, the only sort of concrete reality that can at 
once include and transcend both space and time. 

In short, teleology not only finds room for the truth of 


312 TELEOLOGY 


mechanical laws within itself, but it also provides for facts 
and laws that mechanism ignores or leaves unexplained. 
The mechanist is loyal to scientific method; to some observers 
he has given the impression of being more loyal to the 
method than to the facts of experience. If a method exclude 
real facts, that method cannot lead to philosophical truth. 
Teleology is also loyal to scientific method; but it has a 
broader and more inclusive account of the facts. 

(5) Woy THE APPEARANCE OF MECHANISM IN A 
TELEOLOGICAL ORDER? If teleology be taken seriously, the 
question must arise: Why, in a world of purpose, should 
there be mechanisms? Why should a realm of ends appear 
like a realm of mechanically determined effects? What is 
the value of mechanism? If teleology cannot answer these 
questions, it is placed in a difficult position. Suggestions 
toward an interpretation of the purpose of mechanism are 
offered cautiously. 

It is, at any rate, clear that knowledge of mechanical law 
enables man to control his environment. If there were no 
laws that could be known and depended on, all mastery of 
nature would be impossible. No constant mechanisms, no 
effective freedom. Even defenders of mechanism contend 
for this truth; but it is obviously more consistent with a 
world in which a fundamental purpose adjusts the relations 
of man and his environment than with a world in which there 
is no ultimate purpose or freedom. 

More specifically, the realization of value is made possible 
by mechanisms. If there were no psychological mechanisms, 
we could not depend on any striving’s having any success; 
without them, values could neither be realized nor con- 
served nor communicated save in purely haphazard way. 
If every person were pursuing ends in a universe where 
there was no mechanism, the result would be pure chaos until 


TELEOLOGY AND THE PROBLEMS 313 


some cooperative procedure were agreed on. The laws of 
mechanism are the principles of cooperative procedure for 
the realization of values. 

Mechanical law is one expression of rationality, even apart 
from other values realized through it. It is not, indeed, a 
complete revelation of the nature of mind; it embodies 
analytic rather than synoptic reason; but it is one way in 
which a rational mind must express itself, whether that 
mind be human or divine. 

Finally, the relation between mechanical and teleological 
explanation serves the purpose of expressing the subordina- 
tion of lower to higher in the universe. According to the 
view here presented, mechanism is always and everywhere 
subordinate to rational purpose. ‘This is another way of 
saying that the lower, the beginnings, the elements, find their 
explanation in the higher, the consummations, the wholes. 
This is the heart of all idealistic philosophy and is a truth 
that the mind must recognize when it views experience 
synoptically. 


ie THE RELATION OF TELEOLOGY TO THE 
PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY 


Teleology, as interpreted in this chapter, is the view that 
the universe may be best understood as the system of pur- 
poses of a Supreme Person. In order to correlate results, a 
brief statement is offered of the significance of this view for 
the other problems discussed in the book thus far. 

Chapter I. Philosophy is an attempt to understand and 
interpret the purposes of the universe as revealed in human 
experience. 

Chapter II. One of the fundamental purposes is the 
attainment of coherence in human minds as the only rational 
approach to the coherence of the Supreme Mind. 


314 TELEOLOGY 


Chapter III. Knowledge of purpose other than that of 
the present idea of the human knower is possible (dualism). 

Chapter IV. Physical things can be understood best as 
the energizing of the rational, purposive will of the Supreme 
Person. 

Chapter V. Universals and values have meaning only as 
the reason and purpose of conscious mind, finite and infinite. 

Chapter VI. Human persons are genuinely real and can- 
not be explained in mechanistic or physical terms. They are 
clews to the nature of the universe. 

Chapter VIT. Personalism is the philosophical standpoint 
that does fullest justice by all the facts of experience. 

Chapter VIII. There are mechanical laws in the universe, 
which, however, are incoherent if taken as a complete accoun 
of reality. . 

Chapter IX. The recognition of purpose as a fundamental 
principle of explanation provides for the facts of mechanism 
and for other facts that mechanism omits, and also is con- 
sistent with the results reached by the investigation of the 
other problems of philosophy. 

If these conclusions be true,—and each mind will decide 
for itself whether they commend themselves to it or not— 
this world is a realm of persons, human and divine, whose 
calling is to realize both individually and collectively the 
whole range of true value. A complete philosophy would 
investigate in detail all the types of value in their relation 
to metaphysics. This book must forego completeness; but 
it will select one of the values for illustrative treatment. 
Religion will be chosen because it is one of the outstanding 
forms of value-experience. If its claims are true, it is the 
most significant fact in human history; if untrue, one of 
the most pernicious. The following chapter will, therefore, 
examine religious values. 


CHAPTER X 


WHAT IS THE PLACE OF RELIGIOUS 
VALUES IN LIFE? 


Cire PHILOSOPHY INCLUDES THE INTERPRETA- 
TION OF ALL VALUES 


The philosophic ideal, as every reader of this book knows, 
is to take everything into account. Doubtless the ideal will 
never be fully realized; but human thinking, even in its 
present lowly estate, might do better than it has done. One 
error, in particular, might be avoided by those that are 
trying to think their way through the problems, namely, 
the error of leaving whole areas of experience out of consid- 
eration. 

It is true that it is psychologically impossible to be con- 
scious of all possible experience all the time. It is also true 
that the present is an age of specialization. No man can 
know many fields thoroughly. In his special field one can 
be master of little more than a small corner lot. The philos- 
opher is subject to the same law of life as are the plumber and 
the chemist. He must specialize. The specialization of the 
philosopher should, however, contain one element that is 
not essential to the good plumber or chemist. This element 
is use of the synoptic method in interpreting experience as 
a whole. 

If every one who undertakes to think about experience 
were to cultivate the synoptic method, philosophical thought 


would be in healthier condition. The business of philosophy 
315 


316 RELIGIOUS VALUES 


is not to carry higher mathematics still higher or to pro- 
pound some new theory in biology or in physics. It is, 
indeed, necessary for the philosopher to have a general 
knowledge of the results of the sciences and a specialized 
knowledge of some parts of the domain of science. This 
knowledge, however, be it general or special, is not truly 
philosophical unless it be incorporated into a synoptic view 
of experience. Hence, much that is written in the name of 
philosophy is not genuinely philosophical. It does not even 
try to be synoptic. The error that arises from this defect 
may be called the specialist’s fallacy. 

One of the commonest and most serious products of the 
specialist’s fallacy is the tendency to ignore or to explain 
away the higher values. The method is as follows: The spe- 
cialist centers his attention on some realm, such as biological 
life or sensation, and becomes well acquainted with its 
structure and laws. He then turns to some value, such 
as a moral obligation, an experience of God, or the appre- 
ciation of a beautiful sunset and, without adequate study of 
the value-experience itself, “explains it away” by remarking 
that a moral obligation is “nothing but” an organic response 
to a stimulus; or that an experience of God is “nothing 
but” an affectively toned sensation complex. This is the 
specialist’s fallacy at work. It can be avoided only by giving 
due weight to every type of experience and looking at the 
parts of experience as parts of a whole. The truth about 
experience must comprise the truth about all experience, 
including all experience of values. 


1See J. B. Baillie’s remarks on the futility of explaining moral life 
in terms of sense-perception in J. H. Muirhead, Contemporary British 
Philosophy, p. 16, n. 1. 


DEFINITION OF RELIGION 317 


§ 2. RELIGION CHOSEN FOR SPECIAL 
INVESTIGATION 


Value-experience as a whole has been treated synoptically 
in Chapter V. In the present chapter, religion will be the 
subject of special investigation. ‘The outcome of the con- 
troversy between mechanism and teleology naturally raises 
the question of religion: What, then, should be man’s atti- 
tude toward the purpose of the universe? Further, religious 
values, more obviously than any other kind, involve refer- 
ence to the nature of metaphysical reality. Religion, in most 
of its forms, believes in God, a divine plan of the universe, 
and human immortality. Philosophy, therefore, cannot af- 
ford to ignore religion, nor religion philosophy. Religion, 
moreover, includes or pretends to include, all of the other 
values. God is thought of as the source of all goodness and 
truth and beauty. A study of religion will imply some ac- 
count of these other values. 

From the practical as well as from the theoretical stand- 
point there is need for the philosophical study of religion; 
the present is a time of unrest and controversy. There is 
need for clear thinking about fundamentals. For this rea- 
son a special study of religion is particularly opportune. 


§ 3. DEFINITION OF RELIGION 


Religion might be defined either descriptively or norma- 
tively. A descriptive definition would state what common 
elements actually have been present in those bodies of 
experience and belief that have called themselves religious. 
A normative definition would undertake to tell what religion 
ought to be. A descriptive definition would be based on 
a study of the facts of religious experience without attempt- 


318 RELIGIOUS VALUES 


ing to pass judgment on the value of the facts. It would 
not ask whether religious beliefs were true, religious feelings 
wholesome, religious conduct moral. It would merely state 
that such and such beliefs or feelings or practices have ob- 
tained wherever there was religion. Such a definition must 
take into account all the facts. Knowledge of the facts is 
collected both by history of religion and by psychology of 
religion. The former studies the growth of religion from 
its earliest forms to its present manifestations. The latter 
studies the structure and function of the conscious processes 
that enter into religious experience. 

It is clear that religion may be defined, whether norma- 
tively or descriptively, in many different ways. We agree 
that when we are studying religion, we are studying such 
experiences as those of Christianity and Judaism, Moham- 
medanism and Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism and 
Shinto, not merely as they are now, but also as they have 
been; and we include the earlier bodies of experience, the 
religions of Greece and Rome, Babylonia and Egypt, to- 
gether with the still earlier and more primitive forms from 
which they grew, some of which still survive among savages. 

Beyond this agreement about subject-matter, there is 
great divergence in the definitions, as is illustrated by Leuba’s 
collection in A Psychological Study of Religion. Hardly any 
two scholars agree on the same definition. A survey of the 
history leads the writer to suggest the following as a descrip- 
tive definition: Religion is the total attitude of man toward 
what he considers to be superhuman and worthy of worship, 
or devotion, or propitiation, or at least of reverence. 

Any descriptive definition based on the common elements 
in historical religions is bound to be unsatisfactory. It will 
be abstract, thin, vague. Indeed, the whole attempt to 
catch the spirit of a growing thing by such a method is 


DEFINITION OF RELIGION 319 


doomed in advance to meager success. Would it not be 
absurd to define science in terms of the common elements in 
the various stages of the development of science? 

Many have thought that it was more fruitful to describe 
religion from the psychological rather than from the historical 
standpoint. Some have been especially impressed by the 
thought-processes involved in religion, and so have defined 
it as belief in God or in some superhuman being or beings 
(so Martineau, Romanes, Tylor); others have regarded 
feeling as the characteristic of religion, and so have spoken 
of “the feeling of absolute dependence” (Schleiermacher) 
or a unique feeling of mysterious awe (which Otto calls “the 
numinous”); still others have believed that religion was 
essentially a matter of will-attitudes, and have defined it as 
“the recognition of all our duties as divine commands” 
(Kant) or even as desire for a better social order (so, essen- 
tially, Comte). 

It is evident that the psychological definitions just men- 
tioned all appeal to some one element in the conscious life, 
and so are the result of the so-called analytic or structural 
psychology.* It is pretty clear that the attempt to identify 
religion with a single element of consciousness is as untrue 
to the rich facts of religious life as was the attempt to iden- 
tify it with the pale ghost of real religion that may be found 
to be common to all historic forms of religion. 

Modern psychology is, however, not restricted to the 
structural-analytic method. It is tending more and more to 
make use of the functional method. This studies conscious- 
ness as a process in the light of the ends that it attains. 
Behaviorism is a one-sided development of functional 
method. It would define religion solely in terms of adjust- 
ments, such as occur in ritual, the religious dance, or in 

1See Chapter VI, §2. 


320 RELIGIOUS VALUES 


the social functions of religion. A more sober and open- 
minded functional psychology has, however, been at work 
on the problem; and it is not going too far to say that there 
is approximately general agreement among recent students 
that all religious experience aims to perform one funda- 
mental function, namely, to express man’s attitude toward 
what he regards as the chief value or values in life. 

In theology Ritschl made the ‘‘value” approach familiar. 
Hoffding has probably contributed most to its currency in 
psychology of religion through his interpretation of religion _ 
as resting on “the axiom of the conservation of values.” 
Pragmatism obviously is concerned with the ends attained 
by the religious, or any other, experience. In the works of 
men like Coe, Pratt, Hocking, Wright, King, Ames, Strick- 
land, and others, the study of religion is approached from 
the value point of view. 

Despite the worth of the functional method, no merely 
descriptive study of religion is philosophically satisfactory. 
Religion is, after all, a special field of experience. If there 
be given any description, no matter how accurate and no 
matter how functional, of any special field of experience, the 
really searching questions that the mind asks have not yet 
been answered. Indeed, they have not yet been raised. 
Descriptive science gives us the facts within a certain field. 
The mind will never know, as we say, what those facts 
“amount to” until it sets that field into relation to all the 
other fields of which we know, and views it in its relation to 
the whole of our experienced world. Dreams are facts. 
They have been thoroughly studied. Yet no study of dreams 
will decide whether dreams are “true” unless we also take 
our waking experience into account. Religion has been 
investigated by the psychologists. Yet psychology cannot 





DEFINITION OF RELIGION 321 


answer the question whether religion be a dream or an 
avenue to essential truth about the real universe. 

Hence, in the long run, only a philosophical or normative 
definition will be satisfactory. The enterprise of working 
out such a definition is perilous; its results must be humbly 
and tentatively held. Such a definition would take into ac- 
count the actual facts of religion, and yet judge and evaluate 
those facts by an ideal. There is the danger of degrading the 
ideal to the level of the actual; and the equal danger of 
floating off into a dreamy ideal without contact with the 
actual, Every such definition is subject to criticism by every 
thinker whose interpretation of experience as a whole differs 
from that of the person offering the definition. Nevertheless, 
nothing venture, nothing have. We venture the following 
definition: Religion ought to be characterized by the feeling 
of dependence on a personal God and dominated by the 
will to codperate with God in the conservation and increase 
oj values. 

The proposed definition is frankly normative. It pre- 
supposes the descriptive definitions. It grants that there is 
much in the historical religions that is not “true” religion, 
just as there is much in our sense experience that is not 
“true” of the world of nature. The distinction between 
“true” religion and other types that are not so true may seem 
to be invidious. It must, however, be made sooner or later 
by every person who knows what he thinks about religion 
and who respects the demands of logic. 

The definition has the merit of suggesting a clew to the 
development of the historical religions. If our defense of 
teleology in the previous chapters was valid, then history is 
the expression of a more-than-human purpose. The defini- 
tion would thus be not only a formula of what religion ought 


322 RELIGIOUS VALUES 


to be, but also a statement of the goal of the historic develop- 
ment of religion in all its forms. It would describe part of 
the purpose of the Supreme Person. 

No formal exposition or defense of the definition will be 
given. It has grown up out of a study of the historical and 
psychological facts of religion and of theory of value, and 
must be tested by its adequacy as a normative interpretation 
of those facts. It is not the aim of the present chapter so 
much to defend a special definition as to consider some of 
the most important problems that grow out of religious 
experiences and beliefs. - 


§4. THE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS OF 
RELIGION 


(1) THE ProBLteM oF FaitH. Whatever form religion 
takes, it always implies faith in the object of its worship. In 
its earliest and crudest forms it believed in powers or 
spirits not visible to sense. The more highly developed a 
religion becomes, the more spiritual is its thought of God, 
“The things which are seen are temporal; but the things 
which are not seen are eternal.” Religion, then, is an act of 
faith in a reality not accessible to sense perception. 

Further, religious faith has always avowed itself to be 
something different from scientific knowledge. When the 
man of science says, ‘I know,” he means that he can prove 
his assertion rationally. When the religious man says, “I 
know,” he means that his religious experience gives him an 


intense conviction. He does not mean that he can work 


out rational proof of his “knowledge.” 

There are many minds that find it difficult to believe in 
anything that cannot be perceived by sense, and some that 
think it both unreasonable and dishonest to believe anything 


PROBLEMS OF RELIGION 323 


that cannot be proved. Consideration must therefore be 
given to the question of faith in the supersensuous and to 
that of the relation of faith and reason. 

(a) Faith in the Supersensuous. The fact that religion 
believes in what cannot be perceived by the senses would 
be a serious difficulty if the God of religion were supposed 
to have no relation to the world apprehended by sense. 
There would then be an incoherent dualism between the 
visible world and the divine order. But religion, even in its 
fanatical extremes, has rarely gone to such lengths. On the 
contrary it has held that while God himself or the gods 
are other than nature, God actually manifests or reveals 
himself in nature; and that nature remains an unexplained 
mystery apart from its origin in or creation by God and its 
control by him. 

Religion, then, believes in a supersensuous that is needed 
to interpret the facts of sense. In thus believing, it follows 
the same path as science and philosophy have trod. The 
ideal of a coherent truth, the meaning of a universal law or a 
value, the existence of any conscious person—human or 
divine—all carry us beyond what the eye can see or could 
ever see. In so far as it is concerned with the supersensuous, 
religious faith involves no problem that is not given in the 
very nature of all thought, particularly all thought about con- 
sciousness. When I say that my neighbor, Tom Jones, is a 
conscious person, I have spoken about the supersensuous.* 
When I say, God is a conscious person, I have made appeal to 


1Jt is for this reason that the discussion of consciousness in Chapter 
VI was fundamental to one’s whole philosophical outlook. Behaviorism 
represents a thorough-going naturalism that will tolerate no object in its 
universe that cannot be perceived by sense. If “consciousness” exists, 
there is supersensuous reality, and the naturalistic system falls apart. 
Thus modern psychology has produced a type of thought that refuses 
to believe in the human self lest, if it admit this “supernatural” fact, it 
may logically be driven to believe in God also. A most extraordinary 
instance of the triumph of a theoretic ideal over real experience! 


324 RELIGIOUS VALUES 


no essentially new principle; I have merely extended the 
logic of the old principle. 

(b) Faith and Reason. Faith is trust, confidence, and 
devotion. Reason is analysis, synthesis, and synopsis. 
Each is an approach to the deepest reality of the universe. 
There is no a@ priori ground for regarding them as mutually 
exclusive. The object of faith gains nothing by being un- 
reasonable; the object of reason is not necessarily untrust- 
worthy. Nevertheless there has been long and bitter conflict 
between friends of faith and friends of reason, a conflict that 
breaks forth in new forms in every generation. The root 
of this conflict is the conviction that in religious experience 
man is facing a reality infinitely above and beyond himself. 
To the deeply religious nature it seems folly to sup- 
pose that man’s reason can ever fully comprehend the power 
that is the source of man’s being. ‘Such knowledge is too 
wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.” Thus 
speaks religion. 

The breach between the two is not, however, one that 
cannot be healed. Faith presupposes reason and reason 
faith. If faith is not to contradict itself or known fact, it 
must be reasonable. A faith “contrary to reason” (to use 
Locke’s expression) is a faith in the self-contradictory, that 
is, the impossible and unreal. Just as faith needs reason, so 
also reason needs faith. If reason is to interpret the real 
world, it must exercise a certain amount of trust in the 
unseen,—trust in the best hypothesis that has been found 
to explain the facts, and trust that the same rational order 
prevails in the entire cosmos as has been observed by scien- 
tists and philosophers in our human corner of the universe. 

Conflict arises from a false idea either about reason or 
about faith. If reason be confined rigidly to scientific 
method, nothing will be recognized as true that is not deduced 


ees SSeS 


i 


PROBLEMS OF RELIGION 325 


by cogent logic from necessary principles or from sense- 
experience or is not found by analysis to be an element of 
the given. There is little room for faith in such a concep- 
tion of reason; and, we may add, there is little room for 
the complete functioning of reason itself. That reason is 
synoptic is a thesis that has been too often explained and 
defended in this book to require restatement here. 

It is noteworthy that synopsis is closely akin to faith. 
Fach is an attitude toward reality as a whole, and each 
goes beyond the merely deductive and analytic functions 
of the mind. If faith ventures to assert its independence of 
all reason, it is already on the road to self-destruction. A 
faith that forbids or fears analysis and withdraws itself 
from organic relation to the rest of thought has tacitly 
acknowledged its own irrationality and has thus surrendered 
its claim to truth. A faith that has faith in itself will not 
tremble on the brink of rational investigation. 

For the wholesome development of faith and reason in a 
life, it is important that neither attitude should gain exclu- 
sive control of the mind. A man who always reasons and 
_ never trusts will not reason creatively or fruitfully. A man 
who always trusts and never reasons will find his faith 
becoming more and more mechanical. At times man should 
consciously cultivate the life of faith; at other times, the 
rational understanding of experience. Such alternation (as 
Hocking calls it) will yield a total life in which each domain 
is in harmony with the other. 

(2) THE PropLtEM oF VaLuE. To Say that religion is 
or rests on faith does not carry us very far unless we ask, 
Faith in what? Religious faith everywhere has included, as 
Hoffding holds, a belief in the conservation of values. The 
problem of value is the most important problem for religion 
(see Chapters V and IX). Are values objective? Does evil 


326 RELIGIOUS VALUES 


refute religious faith? These questions, fundamental for 
religion, have already been discussed in other connections 
and need not be taken up again at this point. 

But there is one problem not previously mentioned, 
namely, the problem of the uniqueness of religious values. 
To raise this question is equivalent to asking whether there 
is anything that religion adds to the other values of life. In 
Chapter V the higher values were said to be character, truth, 
beauty, and religion. The question that now confronts us is 
whether religion adds anything to character, truth, and 
beauty; whether it makes any unique contribution to value- 
experience. Is religion in any sense autonomous? 

Various answers to this question have been proposed. 
Some have held that religion is identical with the value of 
complete understanding of truth (Spinoza); others, that it 
is essentially the same as good character (Kant’s theory of 
religion as “‘the recognition of all our duties as divine com- 
mands’’); others that it is the appreciation of beauty (Oscar 
Wilde). Each of these views reduces religion to some one 
of the other values. Still others regard it as an interest in 
the conservation of all the other values, adding no special 
value of its own, (Hoffding). All of these views are at least 
partially true, in that they express the intimate relations of 
the higher values to each other. But the question still re- 
mains, Is there a distinctively religious point of view? 

If there be a uniquely religious or sacred element in life, 
it is not easy to define. Some * would seek to find the unique 
value of religion in social facts,—either in rites and cere» 
monies or in the socializing function. Religion has, it is 
true, great social significance; but the historical development 
of the race has made a distinction between religious and non- 
religious ceremonies, religious and nonreligious social ties. 


1 Positivists, Durkheim, the Chicago school of pragmatism, etc. 


- i ie ——- 
ie ate. eT ine m= ee ge 


se ld > 


oe, 


PROBLEMS OF RELIGION SIN 


To identify religion with the social is to fly in the face of 
religious experience. 

Many would agree with this criticism and would suggest 
that the real uniqueness of religion lies in its relation to 
God. Social rites or functions that are consciously directed 
toward God or motivated by thought of him are, then, 
religious. But this is hardly more satisfactory than the 
other. There is much belief in God that is not religious. 
Philosophy is not religious. Dogma and theology are not 
religious. Philosophy, dogma, and theology might be ac- 
cepted by the devils who “believe and tremble”—but are 
not religious. 

It may seem that every possible trait that might be sug- 
gested as the differentia of religion would suffer from the 
same defect as those that have been mentioned, namely, of 
being so interrelated with the rest of life as not to be able 
to stand by itself. Our previous study of both truth and 
value has taught us that no value is wholly self-sufficient. 
The life of value is a seamless robe. Religion cannot hope 
to assert a domain utterly cut off from the rest of life. If 
religion be autonomous, her autonomy is a home rule within 
the moral empire,’ and subject to the constitution of the 
whole. 

If one is to find the essence of religion, one must look 
where religion lives. Religion’s true home is not to be 
found in every rite and custom, belief and form, that has been 
associated with her name. It must be sought in the original 
experiences of the soul in which religion is born and grows 
to maturity. Common to all such experiences is an attitude 
which, in the definition previously given, was described as 
“a feeling of dependence” on God. This phrase of Schleier- 


1 For the phrase “moral empire,” see K. Sugiomori, The Principles of 
the Moral Empire. 


328 RELIGIOUS VALUES 


macher’s does not describe merely the feeling that a super- 
human being, more powerful than man, is the source of his 
existence and master of his destiny. It has a unique quality. 
It is a sense of awe in the presence of the sacred, reverence 
for the holiness of God. In the tabu of the savage there is 
the birth of what later flowers in mystical religion. When 
Durkheim calls sacred things “things set apart and forbid- 
den,” * he is not alone describing the practice of primitive 
man, but he is pointing out a factor that persists in all true 
religion. Religion is always, when it is “true,” a reverent 
recognition of something in the universe that inspires awe, 
which man should not approach in the self-assertive and utili- 
tarian spirit of every-day life, but in the presence of which he 
should kneel and adore. It is true that he should not kneel 
and adore without regard to the moral, intellectual, or 
esthetic character of the object of his worship; but his adora- 
tion includes more than moral, intellectual, or esthetic appre- 
ciation. 

The view of religion that is thus presented presupposes 
that goodness, beauty, and truth are being sought and 
cultivated to the utmost; but holds that, no matter how 
fully they may be developed, true religion is absent from 
life unless there be in the soul a feeling of reverent awe in 
the presence of the God on whom all life depends. Rudolph 
Otto has recently coined the expression “numinosum, mys- 
terlum tremendum et fascinosum” to express this, the heart 
of religion.” It is in the so-called mystical experiences, in 
prayer and communion with God, worship and sacrament, 
that this feeling comes to fullest expression. 


1 Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, p. 47. 

2In his book Das Heilige, recently translated into English. The Latin 
means, “The numinous, an awe-inspiring mystery, yet fascinating.” The 
word numinous is derived from numen (spirit or divinity) and so means 
“divine” or “possessed of divine qualities.” 


ae 


te 


a 


PROBLEMS OF RELIGION 329 


(3) THE PropLeM oF A PERSONAL Gop. Historically, 
religion has been a matter of the relation of the soul and 
God. The interest of religion has centered in persons, 
human and divine. The problem of personality is, there- 
fore, one of the key problems of religion. The nature of 
personality has been discussed in Chapter VI. The treat- 
ment of mechanism and teleology has pointed to the being 
of a Supreme Person that religion calls God as the only 
hypothesis that will inclusively interpret the facts of experi- 
ence. God is, however, uniquely significant for religion. 
The problem of a personal God should be studied explicitly 
from the point of view of religion. 

Belief in a personal God obtains in Judaism and Christian- 
ity, in Mohammedanism and in the philosophical theism of 
Plato and Aristotle; and it is accepted by many of the great 
religious thinkers of the Orient. Ethical monotheism is the 
climax of the history of religion on many converging lines. 

God is thought of as a Supreme Person who embodies 
the highest goodness; that is, he is the source both of exist- 
ence and of value. As the Church fathers put it, God the 
Creator is also the God the Redeemer. A supreme person, 
even though he were creator would not be God unless he 
were worthy of worship; that is, unless he were ideally per- 
fect as well as ideally powerful. 

Such a being is the object of religious faith. Philosophy 
must inquire, Is God real? The permanent place of religion 
in life depends on the answer to this question. Religion is, 
indeed, sustained by instinct, tradition, and custom. Yet 
if calm thought had to render the verdict that there is no 
God, the fate of religion among intelligent persons, and 
finally in society as a whole, would be sealed. Religion 
depends on faith in God; and the kind of religion one has 
depends on the kind of God one believes in. No investigation 


330 RELIGIOUS VALUES 


should be omitted that would shed light on the grounds of 
belief in God. 

Can the philosophical thinker believe in God? Rather, 
can he reasonably avoid belief in God? The attentive 
student of this book will recall that the foregoing chapters 
have shown that attempts to explain personality in mate- 
rialistic or mechanistic or other “realistic” (7. e., extra-men- 
tal) terms have failed because they leave out facts, and can- 
not be thought out coherently with our total experience. He 
will also recall that it has been shown that matter, mechan- 
ism, and “reality” can be coherently and completely thought 
only as expressions of the will-energy of a Supreme Person. 
It has been shown that a reasonable and critical organiza- 
tion of our sense-perceptions gives us access to an objective 
physical realm; that likewise a rational and critical organiza- 
tion of our value-perceptions reveals to us a realm of ends, 
where values are objective and where the meaning of the 
universe resides. Both realms, the argument has shown, are 
thought in fragmentary and inconsistent manner until we 
view them as expressions of the purpose of the Supreme Per- 
son. 

The foregoing results of philosophical reflection are con- 
firmed by the facts of religious experience. The life in 
which mystical devotion to God, prayer, and worship, have 
their normal place seems to reach unseen sources of power 
and harmony. Belief in God, in a word, seems to be the one 
unifying principle that can make of our chaotic human life 
a harmonious whole of thought and feeling and action. 

Such, in brief outline, is the sort of consideration that 
leads to rational faith in God. It is, however, well-known 
that many minds are unconvinced by these or any other 
reasons that have been adduced in favor of theistic belief. 
A survey of the more important reasons for objection to 





gi ce — te 


PROBLEMS OF RELIGION 331 


belief in a personal God should aid in clarifying our 
thought. 

It is sometimes said that human ignorance and limita- 
tions are such that it is futile for man to seek to solve the 
riddle of the universe. Human limitations should indeed in- 
spire caution and modesty in every thinker; but if mere 
appeal to human limitation, without any further reason, is 
to veto belief in God, this same appeal might logically be 
made against all thinking. We are ignorant and finite; what 
right have we (the conscientious objector might ask) to 
believe that any of the laws of nature are going to hold 
for another moment, or that they held long before we were 
born? The appeal to human limitations, if taken seriously, 
would paralyze all thought and all progress. No such veto 
will discourage man from exploring his universe or from 
striving to interpret it as a whole. 

A much more radical and important objection to regard- 
ing the source of all being as a person is what may be called 
a mechanistic objection. This objection is based on the 
fact that all personality in the world of our experience de- 
pends on a physiological mechanism, and infers that there 
can be no personal God because there is no cosmic nervous 
system. The theist, however, believes that this objection 
leaves the decisive facts out of account. It is true that there 
is an empirical dependence of mind on the nervous system, 
of personality on mechanism. But a wider view of the facts 
shows us that in the last analysis mechanism itself depends 
on personality. Obviously our knowledge of mechanistic 
theory is an achievement of personality and is valid only if 
the thought life of persons is valid. Further, the study of 
mechanism and teleology gave grounds for the conclusion that 
the very existence of any mechanism in the universe is 
intelligible only as the expression of the purpose of a cosmic 


SoA RELIGIOUS VALUES 


person. Hence, the dependence of persons on mechanisms 
means only the dependence of human persons on the rational, 
law-abiding purposes of the Divine Person. Science seems 
to make God impersonal because its methods are analytic, 
and it does not raise the question about the meaning of the 
whole to which its elements and mechanisms belong; but 
when persistent thought raises that question, God is seen 
to be the answer. 

It must, however, be confessed that it is easier for thought 
to recognize that personality is the key to the existence 
of the universe than it 18 to see that the Supreme Person 
is good, that is, in the true sense, a God worthy of love and 
worship. There seems to be more evident order and reason 
in the realm of fact than in the realm of value. The evils 
of life, dysteleological facts, are the most serious obstacle 
to faith in God; both theoretically and practically, they 
challenge the belief that the universe has a coherent ideal 
purpose. The more sensitive a mind is to the nature of the 
ideal, the more keenly does it feel the disparity between 
the ideal and the real; and thus it happens that many 
delicate and noble spirits have despaired. There is no God, 
they have said; God is too perfect to be the author of this 
world, this world is too vile to be imputed to him. ‘God,” 
said Schopenhauer once, “must have been tormented by a 
devil to create a world like this.””, We may wish there were 
a God, say these despairing idealists, but we shall never 
yield our intelligence to our desires! 

That there is incompatibility between faith in God and 
appearances in our world is self-evident. Religion and philos- 
ophy both arise out of this incompatibility. Appearances are 
not reasonable; they are self-contradictory, mere chaos. 
It is because sense-appearances are so irrational that science 

1 Discussed briefly in Chapter IX. 





PROBLEMS OF RELIGION 333 


investigates them, seeks for law, meaning, rationality in 
what at first glance is lawless confusion. Likewise, both 
philosophy and religion face the conflicts and tragedies in 
the realm of value and search for the meaning beyond,—the 
possible reason beyond the unreasonable, the redemption 
beyond sin. No serious religion or philosophy has any 
disposition to sweep the ills of life carelessly to one side; to 
face them and somehow to overcome them is their goal. 

In considering the problem of evil at the outset it should 
be frankly recognized that a certain amount of faith enters 
into all human thinking about reality. Faith that the uni- 
verse is rational, faith that our senses bring us into touch 
with reality beyond ourselves, faith that knowledge is pos- 
sible is the postulate on which all thinking rests. In facing 
the evils of human experience any possible attitude that 
the mind can take is an attitude of faith. If we believe 
that God is good and that the evil can somehow be explained 
in a universe in which God is supreme, we have to exercise 
faith in order to explain away the facts of evil. But if we 
believe that the universe is either evil or indifferent to all 
considerations of value, it is necessary to exercise faith in 
order to explain away the existence of so much goodness in 
such a universe. The problem of evil, as has been said, 
is matched by the problem of good. Without faith no prog- 
ress in thought or life is possible. In science faith in the 
reasonableness of the world triumphs over unexplained facts; 
religion asserts the same prerogative. A calm survey of the 
arguments for the objectivity of value and for teleology will 
show that this faith of religion is not a mere blind assertion 
of desire, but a reasonable faith, both because it is self- 
consistent and because it includes and interprets a wider 
range of facts than any other view. 

Other objections to personalistic theism are less funda- 


334 RELIGIOUS VALUES 


mental. It is sometimes said that the idea of God is a 
clearly human product; its origin and growth may be 
traced; and hence Feuerbach thought that it was truer to 
say that man created God than to say that God created 
man. ‘The superficiality of this objection is, however, ap- 
parent. It is true enough that the idea of God has a varied 
history and is a human construct; but the same thing may 
obviously be said of all human ideas, and not to their dis- 
credit, either. Every principle of mathematics and physics, 
nay, our very perception of an external world has, if we 
trace back the evolution-of thought, a history as variegated 
as that of the idea of God. To say that “man created 
God” is only to say that the mind is active in all knowing; 
it is not to disprove the truth of every idea that the mind 
makes. Further, the existence of erroneous and uncritical 
ideas of God, at any stage of history, no more disproves the 
truth of God’s existence than the existence of erroneous 
ideas about evolution disproves the truth of evolution. 
One other objection may be cited. There are numerous 
thinkers to-day who attack belief in God on the ground that 
if there be a God, the universe must already be perfect and 
so there is no ground for effort or striving to better condi- 
tions. Hence belief in God defeats its own function; it aims 
to make life worth living, yet takes from man every incen- 
tive to improve his world. It may be that this argument is 
valid against certain forms of pantheism or absolute ideal- 
ism. That it is not cogent against personalistic theism Is 
shown by the following facts. Personalism makes purpose 
the fundamental category of personality, human or divine. 
The purpose of God as revealed in experience is not that 
the universe shall be eternally and simultaneously perfect, 
but rather that the persons shall have an opportunity to 
grow. Not static completeness, but development; not a 





GOD AND NATURE Bb 


block-universe, but a universe of suffering and growing love 
—this is the picture that theism presents. The possibility 
of achievement is as contingent on effort in a personalistic 
world as it is in a world of neutral entities, the possibility of 
failure is as real; on the other hand, the incentive for 
achievement is greater, the tragedy of failure more poignant. 


§5. GOD AND PHYSICAL NATURE 


When we speak of God, we mean a being supremely 
good. The idea of God is primarily a value-idea. Nature 
seems to be indifferent to value, careless of individual and of 
type, an impersonal machine. Hence, there are many who 
despair of finding God in nature. They concede that in the 
ideals and aspirations of humanity there is something worthy 
of devotion, worthy, perhaps, of being called God; but they 
can see no relation between the ideal values and the physical 
order of nature. Let us, then, they say, develop our highest 
possibilities; let us strive to reform the social order; but 
let us drop all questions of ontology and cosmology from our 
consideration. No metaphysics can interpret the results of 
physics. So speaks an influential positivistic movement in 
current thought. 

Such a standpoint avoids a good many annoying problems, 
but to avoid is not to solve. The positivist may not be inter- 
ested in the view of the whole that metaphysics seeks; none 
the less, all our experience belongs to the whole, and thought 
abdicates its function if it refuses to seek a synoptic view. 
The values of life are realities; and the physical world is 
reality. These two orders of reality influence each other, 
and both express to us something of the nature of the world 
in which we live. Man has no intellectual right to any idea 
that he is unwilling to relate to the rest of his thinking. 


336 RELIGIOUS VALUES 


If we have any idea of God, our logical conscience commands 
us to inquire into the relation between that idea and our 
idea of nature. 

Chapter IV, on Physical Things, led to the suggestion that 
the energy that is at work in the system of physical nature 
may best be understood as the will of a Supreme Person. 
Religiously stated, this is the theory of the immanence of 
God in nature. 

The belief in the divine immanence has sweeping implica- 
tions. If it be true, every motion of every “particle of mat- 
ter’ is nothing more nor less than God himself willing that 
he and finite persons shall have experiences of a certain type. 
Every event in nature is God’s own conscious deed. Reli- 
gious thought readily enough recognizes the divine presence 
in rainbow and cherry blossom, in the crystal and the song 
of birds. But nature is not all beauty and sunshine; in 
nature there is harshness and horror, agony and death. 
There are earthquakes; and even the prophet could not find 
the Lord in the earthquake. Yet, if there be truth in the 
personalistic view of nature, it must be interpreted completely 
and consistently. Storm and calm, disease and health, are 
alike the literal will of God. 

Such statements as those just made seem at first sight 
revolting; and not revolting merely, but logically inconsistent 
with the conception of God as Supreme Value. Yet the 
presence of God in every natural event has been believed 
by many of the greatest religious and philosophical person- 
alities. It does not seem probable that they have blindly 
accepted a flat contradiction; and thoughtful reflection will 
show that the contradiction is only apparent. 

God is good; and God is the metaphysical cause of every 
event in nature. We ordinarily judge many of those events 
to be “bad”; and bad they certainly are for many of our 


eS ee ep ee or ee eG ae 





GOD AND NATURE 337 


hopes and plans and pleasures. Is God therefore “bad,” 
too? In thinking through this question, the fundamental 
point to note is this: that physical events are not good or 
bad in themselves; they are good or bad only as they 
express and influence personality. When we call a thing a 
physical event, we are thinking of it in abstraction from its 
rise in the mind of God and its influence on human person- 
ality. An event thus thought of has no value or disvalue. A 
kiss as physical event has no meaning or value; as personal 
experience it conveys the most intense and various meanings 
to Romeo and to Juliet, to Judas and to Christ. The same 
physical event may easily have contradictory meanings to 
different minds. To God, the source of all being, every 
physical event means law and love; to man, many such 
events may mean lawlessness and hate. This may be called 
the theory of multiple meanings. According to this theory 
every physical event as caused by God conveys a meaning 
of value; but the same event may also convey any number 
of conflicting human meanings. This implies that man may 
express his purposes through events of which not he, but 
God, is the metaphysical cause. 

The theory of multiple meanings may be illustrated by a 
murder. An evil man slays an innocent person. The evil 
man means by this murder hatred, revenge, or robbery or 
whatever else it may be. His evil meaning is real; he is 
responsible for it and its consequences, for he knew what 
they would be, and he intended them. Yet, by this same 
physical event, God (so our theory would hold) meant his 
purpose of law and patience and love. Let us not blink the 
fact that if God be immanent in all nature, every motion of 
the murderer’s hand, and of his weapon, and all its deadly 
effect, down to the subtlest tremor of the most minute elec- 
tron, was all the deed of God’s will, whose purpose is supreme 


338 RELIGIOUS VALUES 


value. By one and the same event, man means evil, God 
means good; just as by a handshake between two human 
beings, one man may mean friendship and the other treach- 
ery. The doctrine of multiple meanings receives its most 
complex and overwhelming illustration in war, the physical 
events of which express the wiles of the diplomat, the 
patriotism of the soldier, the greed of the capitalist, the 
futile idealization of the poet, the fear or hope or helpless- 
ness of the common man,—and the long-suffering purpose 
of the infinitely good God. In this point of view we have a 
metaphysical account of the religious faith that all things 
work together for good to them that love God. 


§6. GOD AND FINITE PERSONS 


In the account of physical nature presented in the previous 
section, difficult as it is, there would be substantial agree- 
ment between monistic and pantheistic idealists and the more 
pluralistic personal idealists. But when it comes to the 
consideration of the status of finite persons, there are dif- 
ferences even within the idealistic camp. 

Whatever metaphysics one may accept, it is evident that 
human personality is intertwined with and is dependent on 
the rest of the universe. Mind depends on body, on heredity, 
on environment; human personality is fragmentary, inter- 
mittent, chaotic, incoherent, as it stands. From these facts 
the monist infers that human persons are part of the whole 
on which they depend,—part, that is, of God. Yet this con- 
clusion, plausible as it sounds, is very difficult to accept. 
God, the monist would argue, knows all, is supreme value; 
but man is really ignorant, limited, evil. Now, human limita~ 
tion, ignorance and sin as man experiences them, finitely, 
ignorantly and sinfully, cannot be part of a coherent God. 


a o 


GOD AND PERSONS 339 


In God there must be complete understanding of what human 
life means, complete triumph over the defects of humanity. 
This means that “the point of view of the Absolute” is 
complete and perfect. The point of view of man is incom- 
plete and imperfect. Man’s point of view, as it is for 
man, is forever other than man’s point of view as it is for 
the Absolute. 

The monistic theory seeks to state the relation of God 
and man in terms of the category of whole and part. This 
category, however, breaks down when it attempts to describe 
personal relations. The more illuminating category is that 
of purpose, which, on our view, determines what wholes 
and parts there shall be in the universe. The monist rightly 
holds that the divine purpose is supreme; but we can give a 
self-consistent interpretation of the facts only on the view 
that it is the divine purpose that there shall be separate finite 
persons, on whom God acts intimately and constantly with- 
out their being a part of him. In himself man finds signs 
~ of God and of God’s nearness and activity. Yet man is al- 
ways himself, and God is God. They are mutually trans- 
cendent in a sense in which God and nature are not. Most 
of the states of my mind are, it is true, caused not by my 
self-determining will, but by God. This is true of my sen- 
sations and of all in me that is due to physiological and 
psychological mechanisms. Nevertheless, all conscious 
processes in me, whether caused by God’s purpose or my 
_ own, are parts of my complex, unitary personality, which, 
though dependent on God for its being, is self-experiencing 
and, within limits, self-determining. 


340 RELIGIOUS VALUES 


§7. IMMORTALITY 


Religion usually, although not always, includes belief in 
personal immortality. This is the faith that after the end 
of life in this physical order conscious personality con- 
tinues in some other environment. Such faith is a natural 
expression of religion. If religion is or presupposes belief 
in the conservation of values, and if value depends on per- 
sonality, it seems to follow necessarily that religion depends 
on belief in the conservation of persons. If the human race 
could be persuaded that all consciousness of every kind were 
to be permanently annihilated within five years from the 
present, religion would soon lose its hold. A world in which 
all consciousness was to perish would be a world in which 
the religious attitude would be thoroughly irrational. In 
such a. world, value is certain not to be conserved. Ehrenfels, 
one of the great founders of modern theory of value, ex- 
pressed this thought in his doctrine of a metaphysical mini- 
mum. Inner peace, he tells us, does not depend on belief in 
personal immortality, but does require, as a minimum, “the 
belief in the eternity of the psychic in general.” * That is, 
Ehrenfels holds that it is morally necessary to believe that 
conscious life will never entirely cease to be. 

It is very questionable whether a faith like that of Ehren- 
fels can be rationally maintained on a naturalistic basis. If 
consciousness is always to be a fact in the universe, must 
there not be realms and laws of being that lie beyond our 
physical world? Must there not be “another life’? The 
belief that human personality survives bodily death and will 
never be destroyed is both ancient and tenacious. So impor- 
tant a belief should be examined impartially; neither desire 
hor aversion, faith nor prejudice, should determine the con- 

1 System der Werttheorie, Vol. II, pp. 172 ff. 


ee ee ee ee ee 


IMMORTALITY 341 


clusion, but only a fair weighing of the evidence. We shall 
consider first the objections to the belief and then the argu- 
ments in favor of it. 

(1) OBJECTIONS TO BELIEF IN ImMorRTALITY. (a) Its 
Origin. ‘The belief in immortality doubtless had a humble 
origin. Dreams, abnormal psychic experiences, fear of anni- 
hilation, desire for life, tribal consciousness and other factors, 
none of which, to speak mildly, carries with it any guarantee 
of its own truth, are the soil in which belief in immortality 
germinated. Hence, argue some, the belief must be untrue. 

This argument may stir the feelings to a revolt against 
immortality, but to the impartial critic it has no logical force 
whatever. Put into logical form, the argument runs as fol- 
lows: all beliefs that have a humble origin are false; this 
belief had a humble origin; therefore this belief is false. 
The argument has no force against immortality unless the 
major premise be true that all beliefs of humble origin are 
false. A little reflection will show that ultimately all beliefs, 
no matter how scientific or true, may be traced back to a 
humble origin. A genetic or evolutionary study will show 
that all science, all knowledge, even all sense perception, is 
a development out of lower forms of thought and experience. 
No reasonable mind would reject the physics of Einstein be- 
cause one can trace the history of physics back to the fan- 
tastic theories of Plato in the Timeus. The origin of an 
idea has nothing to do with its meaning or value or truth. 
If all beliefs of humble origin are false, then all beliefs are 
false, and all argument is useless. The attempt to disprove 
immortality by an appeal to its origin is a complete failure. 

(b) Personality Dependent on Physiological Organism. 
If the life of the body is cause and the personality is effect, 
when the cause ceases, the effect ceases. If consciousness 
can exist only where the brain is functioning in a certain 


342 RELIGIOUS VALUES 


way, when the functioning of the brain is at an end, con- 
sciousness is also at an end. This argument is impressive; 
and if the “if’-clauses are the truth, the whole truth, and 
nothing but the truth, it is conclusive. It is necessary, then, 
to look into them carefully. 


Is the life of the body cause and the personality effect? 


Can consciousness exist only where there is brain function- 
ing in a certain way? Let us consider these questions sepa- 
rately. 

The belief that the life of the body is cause and the per- 
sonality effect is clear-cut materialism. ‘The case for and 
against materialism has been studied earlier in this book and 
need not be reviewed. Special mention should be made of 
the fact that reason was found for regarding interaction as 
the best expression of the relation of mind and body. Hence, 
personality is not wholly caused by body, but in part the 
behavior of the body is caused by personality. More funda- 
mental is the position of the personalistic philosophy which 
holds that the interaction between mind and body is merely 
phenomenal, and that the very being of mind and body alike 
is dependent on the Supreme Person. If this position be true, 
the body is not the real (or metaphysical) cause of person- 
ality, but rather personality depends both for its relation to 
the body and also for its hope of future life on the purpose 
of the Supreme Person. The facts of physiology are true, 
but they are not final. They do not close the door to an- 
other life. 

The other “if” supposed that consciousness can exist only 
where there is brain functioning in a certain way. This has 
already been partly refuted by the point made in the previous 
paragraph. Nevertheless the fact remains that the relation 
between functions of mind and functions of brain is very 
close, although much yet remains to be discovered about 


IMMORTALITY 343 


those relations. In his Ingersoll Lecture on Immortality, 
James made a point of some importance that bears on this 
difficulty. He argued that functions are of two kinds, pro- 
ductive and transmissive, and that brain may be transmissive 
and not productive of consciousness; just as the heart trans- 
mits, but does not produce, blood. The figure implied in the 
word “transmissive” is somewhat defective, for brain does 
not literally transmit consciousness to the body and environ- 
ment, but only symbolizes or expresses it. We might then 
substitute for James’s “transmissive” the word “expressive.” 
The brain may, then, be an instrument for expressing person- 
ality, just as the piano is an instrument for expressing the 
music that exists in the soul of the pianist. If the instrument 
in either case be injured, the expression is injured; if the 
instrument be destroyed, the expression through that instru- 
ment is destroyed; but just as the player may survive the 
destruction of his piano, so the personality may survive 
destruction of the brain. 

(c) Contrary to Experience. We have never experienced 
a personality apart from a brain, say some, and we have no 
right to assume that a mind without a brain is possible. It 
is, of course, true that we have never experienced a mind 
without a brain, but this is far from disproving immortal- 
ity. If thought were confined to that which we have actually 
experienced, no science would be possible; indeed no knowl- 
edge of other minds or of a world would be possible, for we 
have never experienced another mind nor the whole world. 
We are logically justified and even compelled to go beyond 
experience in our thought, and to regard as true every hypoth- 
esis that proves successful in building up our interpretation 
of experience into a coherent whole. Belief in immortality 
claims to be just such an hypothesis. 

(d) Desire for Immortality Selfish? It has been some- 


344 RELIGIOUS VALUES 


times said that belief in immortality was based on selfishness. 
Buddhism teaches that the very desire to be a self is selfish 
in a bad sense. But it, is undiscriminating to condemn faith 
in life after death as necessarily selfish. Life here or here- 
after may be lived nobly or ignobly; may be desired for 
ideal or for petty ends; may be either selfish or unselfish. 
He who is an egoist to-day will hope for an immortality of 
self-indulgence. He who lives altruistically to-day will hope 
for a future in which the leaves of the trees are for the 
healing of the nations. As Bowne has pointed out, it is no 
more selfish to want to live forever than it is to want to 
live to-morrow. No human being has ever desired a solitary 
or utterly selfish immortality. Men have always hoped for 
a perfect society beyond the grave. 

(e) “Crime of Easy Belief.’ It has also been argued that 
it is morally reprehensible to be gullible. ‘Easy belief” is a 
crime. To this general principle no thoughtful mind will 
take exception; but exception may well be taken to its 
cogency as a refutation of belief in immortality. To believe 
in immortality, without thought, or to believe in it if there is 
no good reason for doing so is intellectual dishonesty. But 
it is surely no crime to believe in anything if one has been 
convinced by the evidence. Further, it may not be irrelevant 
to remark that many who are greatly exercised by the crime 
of easy belief in immortality seem to find easy belief in mate- 
rialism and denial of immortality no crime. The solution 
of the riddle of human life is very difficult; it is not made 
simpler or more reasonable by calling those who reject our 
solution criminals. 

(f) Scientists Disbelieve. It is often said that immortal- 
ity is probably not true because the majority of the men of 
science do not accept it... There is some question about 

1 See Leuba, Belief in God and Immortality, 


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— - 
ee ee 


= ee ee ee ee ee eS See 


IMMORTALITY 345 


whether any investigation yet made has actually revealed the 
beliefs of the majority of scientists; but, be that as it may, 
there is a more fundamental question. It is this: Supposing 
that the majority of scientists were opposed to any belief, 
what force would their opposition have in proving the error 
of that belief? If the belief were one that fell within the 
field of their expert knowledge, their opposition would have 
force. But if the belief were in a field in which they were 
not experts, their opinion would be worth no more than the 
opinion of an artist about Einstein’s theory of relativity. 
A manifesto of intellectuals against immortality, if they have 
not thoroughly investigated the subject, is much like a 
manifesto of intellectuals about the facts of a great war, 
drawn up and signed in the heat of patriotic fervor without 
any attempt seriously to investigate the facts. The only 
scientists whose opinion would weigh heavily are those that 
are experts in the study of immortality; and it is safe to say 
that a majority of such are believers in the future life. 
(g) Adequate Substitutes? Finally, some hold that faith 
in life after death should be abandoned on the ground that 
it is superfluous. Simpler and more reasonable substitutes, 
it is said, may be found to perform the function of belief in 
immortality. That function is to symbolize the fact that man 
is living for permanent causes; that the meaning of this 
life does not end when he dies. But in order to express this 
fact it is not necessary to believe that we human units live 
on forever. If we pass on to other generations a better 
world, we may find in the immortality of influence, or “‘social 
immortality,” as it is called, an adequate substitute for 
personal immortality. Or if we are living for eternal truth, 
for principles that will forever be noble and ideal, we may 
perish, but they shall endure; and in their eternity we may 
find compensation for the death of our small personalities. 


346 RELIGIOUS VALUES 


Noble spirits have found spiritual significance in these 
substitutes. But if we think these substitutes through, we 
see their inadequacy. The immortality of influence is only 
a phrase; for, as surely as human life on this earth had a 
beginning, it will have an end. The time will inevitably 
come when the environmental conditions that make life on 
this planet possible will disappear. Then the last human 
being will die, leaving no trace of all the strivings of human- 
ity and no single item of value in the whole world; for value 
depends on personality. The substitutes for immortality 
are, therefore, no true equivalent; we face the dilemma, 
either personal immortality or the ultimate annihilation of 
all value that humanity can achieve. 

(2) SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS IN FAvorR OF IMMORTAL- 
Iry. (a) Objectivity of Value. Man’s moral experience 
and the whole realm of value point toward immortality. 
Our moral nature commands perfect obedience to duty, 
perfect development of all values. If value be objectively 
real, as our study in a previous chapter led us to believe, 
then the voice of duty is the voice of reality itself. Further, 
if personality itself be the value on which all others depend, 
the objectivity of value cannot be fully expressed by its real- 
ization in the divine mind. No human personality must be 
annihilated if the full actual and potential value of the uni- 
verse is to be conserved. The validity of this argument 
manifestly depends on the validity of the argument for the 
objectivity of value. 

(b) The Goal of Evolution. A synoptic view of the whole 
evolutionary process points to immortality as the “goal of 
evolution.” * When consciousness first emerges, it is merely 
the servant of the physiological and animal nature of man. 


1See Mathews in The Yale Review, Jan., 1921; Le Conte, Evolution 
and Religious Thought. 


Pe Ne ta ee ee ee lh ent 


IMMORTALITY 347 


As evolution progresses, there is an increase of conscious 
traits that are biologically superfluous and point to the 
development of individual and social consciousness as an end 
in itself. In man at his best this tendency reaches its climax. 
The animal nature is regarded almost wholly as a means to 
the end of developing the higher values of life. Adaptation 
to physical environment, which once was the goal of life, 
is now made instrumental to the expression of beauty and 
goodness, religion and truth. The whole movement of the 
life force is from natural to the spiritual; from the primacy 
of matter and body to the primacy of mind. It seems as 
though nature were striving to speak to us in a divine lan- 
guage that says, Spirit really is master of body; and the goal 
of evolution is the eternal development of spirit. This argu- 
ment rests on the assumption that nature will keep her prom- 
ises. No assumption about the unseen future is capable 
of decisive proof; but this one is of a piece with the neces- 
sary scientific assumption of the rationality of the universe. 

(c) Solves Problem of Evil. Belief in immortality is the 
only rationally satisfactory solution of the haunting problem 
of evil. It is, however, important to be clear about the sense 
in which a future life may be thought of as solving the ills 
of the present. It would not be enlightening to hold that, 
while this life is painful, the next will be all pleasure; or 
that while this life is “unjust,” the next will be just; that 
while this life is probation, the next will be pure enjoyment. 
Such solutions are both too easy and too difficult; for they 
seem to hold that God has one law for this life and another 
for the life to come, and they thus create more problems 
than they solve. Nevertheless, it is only the faith in im- 
mortality that can find a rational meaning for evil. Evil, 
considered by itself, has no meaning; it is a brutal frustration 
of value or a power that vitiates the very sense of value. 


348 RELIGIOUS VALUES 


Yet evil, like everything else in human life, may have a 
meaning and a value beyond itself in what it leads to, in the 
end which it serves, the whole to which it belongs. If all 
humanity is to fall into the grave and rise no more, neither 
evil nor good has any final meaning. But if the human race 
is composed of deathless persons, there is the eternal pos- 
sibility that evil may be overcome, that it may serve its 
disciplinary and refining end, and that through it a meaning 
may be achieved. Anything may be endured in a universe 
where there is hope. 

(d) Psychic Phenomena. Many attempts have been 
made to gain experimental verification of immortality 
through what are called psychic phenomena. The literature 
is very extensive, and new experiments and theories are con- 
stantly being reported. It may be doubted whether the net 
result of “spiritism” for faith in an after life is very great. 
After deductions are made for fraud, for the work of the 
subconscious, for unconscious physiological influences, and 
(perhaps) for telepathy among the living, there is scant 
ground for the belief that there has been actual communica- 
tion with departed spirits. The content of the supposed 
messages does not savor of a world higher or better than our 
own. 

There is, however, one result of all this experimentation 
that may be regarded as confirming the faith in immortality. 
Psychic phenomena continually reveal the fact that the 
human personality has unsuspected powers and extraordi- 
nary control over matter. The facts of psychotherapy and 
hypnosis * and the experiences of mysticism all agree with 
the spiritualistic phenomena in pointing to these hidden 
powers of personality. If personality be so much more than 


1 See the remarkable account by “M. M. G.” entitled “What Death is 
Like,” in the Atlantic Monthly, April, 1924. 


i en ee ee ee 


IMMORTALITY 349 


it attains in this life, hope for a future opportunity for devel- 
opment is reasonable. 

(e) Resurrection of Jesus. Among Christians, the resur- 
rection of Jesus is perhaps the chief basis of living faith 
in immortality. The resurrection stories have been hotly 
debated by scholars. Critical examination of the New 
Testament narratives shows that there are two strands of 
tradition; one representing the body of the risen Christ 
as “spiritual” and one as physical. It is easier to account 
for the rise of a physical misinterpretation of a spiritual 
fact than for a spiritual misinterpretation of a, physical fact. 
Man is naturally materialistic. Whatever the facts about 
the resurrection may be, it is evident from the records and 
from the course of history that the early Christians were 
absolutely convinced that Jesus rose from the dead. The 
modern man, however, does not have access to the same 
facts and experiences as the Christians of the first genera- 
tion, and his attitude toward a risen Jesus will be deter- 
mined more by his philosophical standpoint than by the 
details of the New Testament narrative. 

({) Character of God. The final, and, in the writer’s 
opinion, most fundamental argument for immortality is the 
character of God.’ If God be good, then somehow human 
persons must be immortal. To promise so much, only to 
destroy us; to raise such hopes, and then to frustrate them; 
to endow us with such capacities that are never to be 
fully used; to instill in us a love for others, all of whom are 
to be annihilated, is unworthy of God. Faith in immortality 
thus rests on faith in God. If there be a God, man’s immor- 
tality is certain; if not, immortality would not be worth 
having. 


1See Dean C. R. Brown’s Ingersoll Lecture. 


350 RELIGIOUS VALUES 


§ 8. THE FUTURE OF RELIGION 


Religion (if our view of it be sound) is the highest and 
most satisfying expression of life. It unifies, strengthens, 
and supplements all the other values of life; it places our 
life in a setting that changes, indeed, none of the facts of 
life, but gives them a new meaning. It gives human life an 
eternal goal and value. It elevates every human individual 
to the possibility of eternal companionship with God. It 
greatly dignifies man while at the same time adding heavily 
to the responsibilities and tasks of humanity. It lifts man 
from the filth of life and offers him a crown of gold. 

Such is the ideal function of religion. To many souls it 
is furnishing all that the ideal portrays. Yet religion is 
functioning but feebly in the real world in comparison with 
what might be, and ought to be. The church, the home and 
shrine of religion, has been institutionalized, convention- 
alized, standardized, to such an extent that the life forces of 
religion are at low ebb. Some ascetics of the intellect are 
turning from religion because they do not believe that they 
have the intellectual right to believe. These are a small 
group. The real source of the wide-reaching religious im- 
potence of to-day is the claim made on man’s very soul by 
the complexity of our material civilization, its business and 
its pleasures. Man has no time or strength for God. The 
world has crowded God out of life. 

In the light of this situation what is the prospect for 
religion? Is religion in mortal combat with our materialistic 
society? Will religion be vanquished by being ignored? If 
at times the outlook appears gloomy, there is nevertheless 
profound reason for hope. Religion is rooted in the very 
nature of man, his instincts, his mind, his needs. The hectic 
abuses of present-day life are on the surface. Either our 


a tae: 


FUTURE OF RELIGION 351 


material civilization will collapse of its own weight, through 
war or other internal dissensions, or it will be spiritually 
renewed from within. In either case the essential office of 
religion will continue. Indeed, as knowledge and progress 
advance, the need for a unifying spiritual force, to keep our 
inner life from collapse and society from disintegration, be- 
comes more and more acute. Human ideals are part of the 
universe and will thrive only when fed from their source 
in divine reality. It is unthinkable that the purpose of the 
universe should fail. Religion will survive. 


CHAPTER XI 


WHAT IS THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF 
PHILOSOPHY? 


SI. RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 


A bird’s-eye view of the fundamental philosophical prob- 
lems, such as has been incompletely undertaken in this 
book, may or may not lead the reader to agree with its con- 
clusions. It should certainly lead him to perceive that on 
every problem of importance there are different views, and 
that something may be said on both sides of every great 
question. 

In the first chapter it was said that the study of philos- 
ophy was useful for life. Now that we have surveyed the 
field, we are ready to consider from a more enlightened 
standpoint the question of the practical value of the subject. 
We see more clearly now than we did then the meaning 
of philosophy and also the range of difference in opinion 
among philosophers. No system of philosophy, neither 
personalism nor any other, is so well proved as to win the 
adherence of all thinking men. Philosophy is still a quest. 
The pursuit of truth is not ended. If, after all our study, 
we are still looking for more truth or new light on old truth, 
some minds become discouraged. What, they ask, is the 
practical value of a philosophy that has not brought us to 
the goal? If the doctors of philosophy disagree, what is to 


become of the student? 
352 





PRACTICAL VALUE 353 


§2. WHAT IS MEANT BY ‘‘PRACTICAL VALUE’’? 


The question about the practical value of philosophy or of 
anything else is made harder by man’s reluctance to define 
what he means by the word practical. 

There are many who, loath though they may be to admit 
it, mean by practical that which yields financial returns. 
Such a definition seems to have been in the mind of the 
prosperous butcher who remarked to a gentleman of cul- 
ture, “You may dress better than I do, but see what I have 
in the bank at the end of the year!’ Such also seems to 
be the thought of those who condemn philosophy as a luxury. 
Leisure and tools for philosophizing cost considerable money; 
yet philosophy at best is the potential scurce of but a meager 
income, and that only to a small proportion of its students. 
Chemistry, physics, biology, psychology,—these are more 
comprehensible to the butcher than is philosophy. He sees 
that the public is willing to pay money for the results of 
these sciences, while only an occasional far-seeing idealist 
is willing to pay for philosophy. To the butcher, moreover, 
far-sightedness of that sort is an optical defect. | 

The clan of the butcher appears to be large; yet it is not 
so large as it seems to be. The number of butchers, that is, 
of average human beings, who seem to live wholly for 
money, is too large; but very few people! will, in their thought- 
ful moments, admit that they desire possession of wealth 
for its own sake. They will say that they want money for 
what it will buy; and it will buy the means of existence and 
the possibility of attaining life’s values. 

If, then, practical be defined as meaning what leads to 
possession of money, philosophy stands condemned. Its 
currency is that of the republic of mind,.not of any political 
government; its price is above rubies. Philosophy will buy 


354 PRACTICAL VATGE 


no bread for the starving, will build no house for the shelter- 
less. It feeds and shelters only the mind. 

Nevertheless the philosopher believes that his contribution 
is more truly practical than anything that money can buy. 
When he says this, he means to imply that whatever leads to 
true value is practical. Philosophy does not furnish the 
things that make human existence possible; but it casts a 
new light on the things that make human existence valuable. 
In the last analysis, nothing is practical if human existence 
is worthless. The meaning of the word practical is a hopeless 
riddle until man decides what he is living for, and what is 
worth living for. To be truly practical in any situation or in 
life as a whole means to survey the possibilities, to choose 
the best, and to do what contributes most effectively to the 
best. If I wish to raise chickens and I am practical, I 
shall not rush to the nearest grocer and purchase the first 
dozen of eggs that is offered me. Rather, I shall consider 
different breeds of hens, methods of incubation, the expense 
involved in different methods, the experience of others, my 
own experience; and finally in the light of knowledge I shall 
make my decision. The practical chicken-raiser must be, 
so to speak, a philosopher of the chicken cosmos. His 
knowledge must be inclusive, analytic, experimental, syn- 
optic,—perhaps even romantic. The fully practical human 
being will give equally full attention to the nature and 
conditions of human life; and he cannot stop short of 
a philosophy of the human cosmos that includes all that 
men experience or that can affect them in any way. 

Thus we see that the famous ancient distinction between 
theoretical and practical is less final than it has been thought 
to be. To be truly practical one must take into account all 
that any theory could reasonably conceive; to be truly 


a> 
> 


DOGMATISM 355 


theoretical, one must include every practical fact. There 
is only a difference of emphasis. To be theoretical is to 
know the best means of attaining all possible ends, includ- 
ing the best ones; to be practical is to use the best means of 
attaining the best ends. Each is essential to the other. 
Practical values destroy themselves when separated from all 
theory. “Hear Reason,” says Poor Richard, “or she’ll make 
you feel her.” 


ee THE PRACTICAL PERIL OF DOGMATISM 


If we eschew all philosophy, that is, all attempts to ask 
what our life as a whole reasonably may be taken to mean, 
we cannot avoid saying something abott our life, after all. 
The something that we then say will be an unreasoned dog- 
matic assertion. Even though we seek to philosophize, our 
attitude may turn out to be dogmatic. In either case we 
confront a practical peril. 

To be practical, we have found, implies some knowledge 
of the ends and values of life. In the background of every 
practical act hovers the brooding spirit of a philosophy that 
gave it birth and that judges its meaning and value. There 
is no doubt about the influence of philosophy on life; but 
there is danger that this influence may be pernicious. The 
more philosophy influences life, the more danger there is 
that life will unduly influence philosophy. If we live by a 
philosophy, our affections and will are committed to al- 
legiance to that particular system. A change in fundamental 
thinking will mean an uprooting of habitual ways of feeling 
and acting. Man’s “practical” nature resists encroachments 
from his intelligence, and he expresses his aversion to change 
_ by the attitude of dogmatism. 


356 PRACTICAL VALUE 


By dogmatism is meant the assertion, whether explicit 
or implicit, that what one believes is final, incapable ofi being 
revised, improved, or overthrown. 

The dogmatic temper is ridiculous in the light of history. 
Truth has often been discovered contrary to previous beliefs 
and expectations. Much truth is beyond us. It is no mere 
nonsense when Tertullian says, “Certum est, quia impos- 
sibile est . . . credo quia absurdum.”* We cannot adapt 
reality to our thought; we must adapt our thought to real- 
ity. No human philosophy can be the complete divine 
truth. 

The serious thinker is, it is true, morally bound to be true 
to the best that he can find. He will say, This I believe and 
must believe until I have reason for believing differently. 
But he will guard himself against dogmatism as against 
the suicide of reason. He will see that his loyalty to attained 
truth is mere blindness unless it is also open-minded to new 
truth. He will live by his philosophy; but his philosophy 
itself will be living. He will, therefore, need to be constantly 
on guard against compromise with inclination and social 
pressure; he will accept or reject no doctrine because it is 
either fashionable or unfashionable. 

The dogmatist loves the truth or error that he believes for 
its own sake; the philosopher loves the truth that he has for 
the sake of the eternal truth which alone gives value to tem- 
poral truths. The philosopher will therefore regard dog- 
matism as the foe of truth and as the doom that man 
pronounces on himself when he determines to know nothing 
new or different from what he has known in the past. If 
philosophy leads to dogmatism, she has betrayed her own 
cause; if she leads away from dogmatism, she has performed 
a high practical service to the human race. 


1“Tt is certain since it is impossible; I believe because it is absurd.” 


SUBJECTIVISM 357 


§4. THE PRACTICAL PERIL OF SUBJECTIVISM 


A philosophy that avoids dogmatism is not therefore out 
of danger. An excess of tolerance and open-mindedness is 
as dangerous as a defect in those qualities. The pendulum 
may swing from dogmatism to subjectivism. 

Subjectivism, as the term is here intended, means the 
belief that all philosophical systems are no more than ration- 
alized expressions of the early training, or the desires, or 
the psychological type, of the philosopher. If dogmatism 
asserts that all systems (in the opinion of their makers) are 
equally true, subjectivism holds that all are equally false. 
Thus, in the eyes of impartial critics, both come out at the 
same place. Both hold that philosophy can find no truth 
that is true for all minds. 

The devastating doubt of subjectivism is not without its 
practical value. It reveals the indissoluble relation between 
life and philosophy. There would be, if not a truth value, 
at least an esthetic value in regarding philosophy as a 
dramatization of personality. 

After all, subjectivism, like dogmatism, destroys itself. 
If the subjectivist can know that the various philosophies 
are due to subjective causes and can enumerate those causes 
in psychological and environmental terms, he presupposes 
that he has some knowledge that is truly objective. Our 
type, our desires, our training, doubtless influence us pro- 
foundly; but if we can become conscious of our limitations, 
with the subjectivist as our guide, we may in some measure 
rise above them, learn from others, and perhaps through 
our peculiar type make a unique contribution to the truth 
that humanity is slowly mastering. 

If subjectivism were true, there could be no science, no 
history, no knowledge of other persons. It would be a mad 


358 PRACTICAL VALUE 


world! Skeptical subjectivism is, like dogmatism, the suicide 
of thought. If, however, skepticism teaches us to become 
aware of our limitations in order to rise above them, it is 
performing for humanity a most practical service. 


§5. THE IDEAL US. THE REAL 


The practical value of philosophy is perhaps most often 
called in question because it is said to be dealing with 
mere ideals and theories rather than with actualities. The 
ideal seems to many to be an imaginary refuge from stern 
reality. On the other hand those who love philosophy do 
so chiefly because it reveals ideals and meanings. Without 
the ideal, the so-called realities of life seem to the thinker 
to be what the waves of the ocean at midnight are to the 
lone mariner without light or compass. The real without the 
ideal is chaos. 

Here is a clash between two radically different ways of 
facing life. Yet after all, it is not a clash between philosophy 
and no philosophy. It is rather a clash between two types of 
philosophy. The idealist and the realist are both philos- 
ophers. The philosophic spirit has a magic net which it casts 
over every mind that opposes her, so that, if it even attempts 
to offer any reasonable objection to her, it becomes at once 
her victim. 

The human world needs its realists, who hard-headedly 
fix their gaze on what is near at hand; but far more does 
it need its idealists, who peer down the perspectives of time 
and space and value and mind, and try to catch a glimpse 
of what the near facts mean in the light of the distant. The 
realist furnishes the paint of life; the idealist sketches the 
picture that is to be painted. Spengler has rather crudely 
remarked that philosophy of late has descended from the 


IDEAL VS. REAL 359 


bird’s-eye view to the frog’s-eye view. Both views are 
needed; but when man is deeply concerned about his duty 
and his destiny, he needs the view of the bird that, soaring, 
sees the landscape as a whole. 

If any one should find a new fact that seemed to be unlike 
all other facts and to fit no known law or principle, great 
interest would be aroused by the discovery. The interest 
would, however, not be due to the existence of a new solitary 
brute fact, but rather to the eager curiosity to discover the 
law, the meaning, the ideal, that this fact embodies. 

There is danger that the bird may float in the air too 
long and thus become unfamiliar with the swamps of earth. 
There is also danger that the frog will see only his swamp and 
will not believe the song of the bird. After all, the bird has 
the advantage. She can fly, and she can hop; but the frog 
can only hop. There is danger that philosophy may fly too 
high and too far and may lose the way in ideal dreams. Is 
not this danger less than that of the unthinking man who does 
not even know that there is a way to lose? 

Philosophy summons every man to do consistently and 
thoroughly what every one does in some degree. She points 
to the changing world of experience and inquires what we 
can reasonably depend on to be constant in the change; she 
asks, Whence and whither flows the stream? The obstinate 
realist says, Here is the stream, and that is all I know. Yet 
even he finds an ideal of “tough-minded” loyalty to truth, 
and, unless a solipsist, goes beyond the stream of his private 
consciousness by virtue of some ideal of objectivity. It is 
the most unreal of dreams that we can do without ideals or 
that we can ever distinguish reality from illusion without 
some ideal criterion of truth. 

In response to a question from the Hatter, Alice once re- 

1 Der Untergang des Abendlandes (33d-44th edition, 1923), Vol. I, p. 59. 


360 PRACTICAL VALUE 


marked, “Really, now you ask me, I don’t think—” “Then 
you shouldn’t talk,” replied the Hatter. The Hatter spoke 
wisely; for without thinking, that is, without appeal to ideals, 
it is hardly worth while to say anything. 


§6. THE VALUE OF PHILOSOPHY FOR LIFE 


Life, then, needs ideals for its interpretation. The truth 
of this abstract statement is confirmed by the actual influ- 
ence of philosophy on life. Ideals and ideas have made his- 
tory. Ideas are not the only forces in life; man is also a 
creature of desires and passions, instincts and habits, and 
his conduct is therefore largely blind and unreasoning. But 
it would be a libel on humanity to regard all human behavior 
as due to irrational causes. It is true that relatively few men 
have either the training or the capacity sufficient to enable 
them to follow even elementary reasoning in philosophy. 
It is also true that philosophical thought has far-reaching 
influence on the lives of multitudes who have scarcely heard 
the name of philosophy and have no technical knowledge 
of it at all. 

Philosophy has played a large part in liberating the human 
mind from blind acquiescence in tradition or prejudice and 
in teaching men to face the whole truth fairly. It was philos- 
ophy that undermined the confidence of the Greek in his 
crude immoral polytheism. Philosophical reflection on the 
universe gave birth to the idea of evolution centuries before 
Darwin; and philosophy interpreted the relation between 
evolution and the eternal values after Darwin had seemed to 
dissolve everything away. In a growing world philosophy 
still sees life steadily, while minds untouched by philo- 
sophical ideas are groping in confusion. Philosophical 
thought about the meaning of life gives rise to theories of 


PERSONALISM 361 


the state, which in turn affect the currents of history. 
Locke’s theories of government, transplanted to French soil, 
were among the roots of the French revolution. The dialectic 
of Hegel stimulated Karl Marx and the result is modern 
socialism. Practically every system of education, from the 
medieval to Herbart’s and Dewey’s, is based on a philosophy 
of values. Without a philosophical background and criti- 
cism, religious faith easily degenerates into dogmatic tradi- 
tionalism, at war with science and with itself. Illuminated 
by the synoptic view of reflective thought, religion is ren- 
dered clearer and loftier. 

Who can contemplate civilization without acknowledging 
the influence of philosophical thought on the course of af- 
fairs? Who can fail to perceive that there is a great prac- 
tical need for a more convincing interpretation of the mean- 
ing and value of lifer 


§ 7. THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF PERSONALISM 


We cannot get along without philosophy. Perhaps we 
cannot get along with it. If philosophy means only the 
strife of systems, it means no more than Babel. If it means 
only a benevolent attitude toward truth, it is lovely but in- 
effectual. To be of substantial value, theoretical or prac- 
tical, philosophy must have something positive to say. The 
philosophical spirit should not remain impalpable but should 
make itself felt in real life. The student of philosophy has 
the responsibility for choosing as his working philosophy the 
way of looking at things that seems to him most reasonably 
to interpret reality as a whole. 

It seems to the author of this book that the philosophy 
called personalism is on the whole the most coherent and 
inclusive account of our world that he knows of. The rela- 


362 PRACTICAL AVALUE 


tive merits of the various systems have been examined, and 
repetition is unnecessary. It only remains to point out briefly 
what practical difference it makes whether one accepts per- 
sonalism or not. 

For all human beings, the general conditions of experi- 
ence are the same. Whatever our beliefs may be, we all 
live in the same world, our bodies are subject to the same 
laws, we have the same fundamental needs and instincts. 
We are all alike, but we are also different. Our differences 
are, if anything, more important than our resemblances. Mr. 
Chesterton once remarked that the one thing that really 
counted about people was their philosophy of life. It may 
be added that we cannot think through any philosophy of 
life without taking into account all of the experiences of 
man and all of the vexatious questions of logic and psy- 
chology, epistemology and metaphysics, that have been taken 
up in this volume. 

Perhaps the most far-reaching question that one is called 
on to face is this: Is the universe friendly or not friendly to 
human values and ideals? 

There are many philosophers who either assert or imply 
that the universe is not friendly. Numerous forms of mate- 
rialism and realism hold that the aspirations and loyalties of 
life, in short, all values, are merely the outcome of our animal 
ancestry that can be traced back to the dawn of life and to 
inorganic matter. Save for the faint stream of life on this 
planet, such views hold that there is no consciousness, no pur- 
pose nor value in the universe. All goodness is the purely 
mechanical product of a universe that, as a whole, intends 
nothing and values nothing. Among the products ground 
out by this machine is human knowledge. Man knows his 
place. It is as fuel for a little fire in one corner of a cosmos 


PERSONALISM 363 


that was and will be unwarmed and unlit by any other fire. 
Not the individual alone but the entire race is fuel for this 
fire. It kindles, flares up, smolders, goes out. Nothing 
will be left of man but charcoal and ashes. Any one who 
seriously accepts naturalistic mechanism must face these its 
ultimate consequences. 

When the full implications of impersonalistic philosophy 
are thus clearly seen, the only result can be cosmic pessimism 
and despair. If the materialist still lives a wholesome, active, 
human life, his life has no logical connection with his philos- 
ophy. Like Hume, he forgets his speculations; and what is 
more, he lives as if they were not true. He chooses as though 
he were a self-determining person; he lives as though there 
were something to live for. There is a double tragedy in the 
life of the good materialist: the tragedy of a worthless uni- 
verse and the tragedy of self-contradiction between theory 
and life. If materialism were true, this tragedy would have 
to be faced grimly and borne as well as the human machine 
might bear it. But if, as we have found reason to believe, 
materialism is both unsound in theory and tragic in prac- 
tice, the burden and the abuses of materialism are as un- 
necessary as they are evil. 

The practical advantages of personalism are evident. 
Personalism interprets the universe as friendly. It justifies 
hope. It finds in the relation of human and divine wills an 
inexhaustible meaning and purpose in life. Indeed, it pre- 
sents so beautiful a prospect that some minds find it too 
good to be true. 

Certain critics go so far as to attack personalism on 
practical grounds, holding that if supreme goodness be at 
the heart of the world (as both personalism and absolute 
idealism hold), there is no longer any incentive to effort and 


364 PRACTICAL VALUE 


progress; for if, they ask, this world is the handiwork of 
a perfect creator, why should we undertake to perfect it? 
Why paint the lily? 

This objection arises from a failure to take personalism 
seriously enough. Personalism does not believe that now, 
or at any point in time, the universe is perfect. It finds in 
God a being of perfect goodness, but not of mechanical per- 
fection. His perfection is perfection of purpose, a teleo- 
logical perfection. In its practical bearing on human beings 
this means not that the universe is perfected, but that it is 


perfectible; not that nothing can be improved, but that real. 


change, real improvement, is the purpose of life. The suf- 
ferings of man and the ideal obligation to attain the highest 
values are stern factors in life, rendered more stern by the 
personalistic interpretation of suffering and obligation as 
entailed by the divine purpose. Personalism, therefore, is 
not too delicate and beautiful to face the facts. It too sees 
life as a tragedy; there is the shadow of a cross on the face 
of the personalistic universe. Humanity suffers and dies. 
Many fail to see the suffering in the light of ideal values. 
The world is tragic enough still, although all that personal- 
ism teaches be true. The secret of the practical signif- 
icance of personalism is that it faces the tragedy and sees 
that it is not all. There is tragedy, but there is also mean- 
ing; and the meaning includes and transforms the tragedy. 

Every reader of this book will decide for himself what 
he is to think about the problems of philosophy. But he 
cannot escape from the fact that this decision is not merely 
a theoretical hypothesis, but also a practical attitude with 
far-reaching consequences. The synoptic thinker will not 
be determined in his thinking by those consequences alone, 
but he will see the necessity of taking them into considera- 
tion in a complete interpretation of experience. 


Bb TOG Roary 





CHAPTER I 


ARMSTRONG, A. C., “Philosophy and Common Sense,” Phil. Rev., 
25 (1916), 103-120. 

Batrour, A. J., A Defense of Philosophic Doubt, 1879. 

Boopin, J. E., A Realistic Universe. N. Y.: Macmillan, 1916. 

Bowne, B. P., Personalism. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1908. 

Bravery, F. H., Appearance and Reality. N. Y.: Macmillan, 
1906. 7 | , 

BRIGHTMAN, E. S., ‘The Personalistic Method in Philosophy,” 
Meth. Rev., 103 (1920), 368-380. 

But er, N. M., Philosophy. N. Y.: Columbia Univ. Press, 1908. 

CoLtumpia ASSOCIATES IN PuiLosopHy, Introduction to Reflec- 
tive Thinking. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1923. 

CuNNINGHAM, G. W., Problems of Philosophy. N. Y.: Holt, 
1924. 

CREIGHTON, J. E., An Introductory Logic. N. Y.: Macmillan, 
1920. 

Dewey, J., Reconstruction in Philosophy. N. Y.: Holt, 1920. 

FERRIER, J. F., Lectures and Remains. Vol. I, Chap. I, pp. 1-34. 

FLETCHER, O. O., An Introduction to Philosophy. N. Y.: Mac- 
millan, 1913. 

FULLERTON, G. S., Introduction to Philosophy, N. Y.: Macmil- 
lan, 1906. 

HEGEL, History of Philosophy. Pp. 1-116. 

Hrpsen, J. G., Problems of Philosophy. N. Y.: Scribner, 1898. 

HoeERNLE, R. F. A., Studies in Contemporary Metaphysics. N. Y.: 
Harcourt, Brace & Howe, 1920. 

HOFFDING, H., Problems of Philosophy. N.Y.: Macmillan, 1905. 

James, W., Some Problems of Philosophy. N. Y.: Longmans, 
Green & Co., 1921. 

KULpPE, O., Introduction to Philosophy. N.Y.: Macmillan, 1915. 
Pass 247. 

Lapp, G. T., Introduction to Philosophy. N. Y.: Scribner, 1898. 

367 


368 BIBLIOGRAPHY 


LEIGHTON, J. A., The Field of Philosophy. N. Y.: Appleton, 
1923. 

Marvin, W. T., A First Book in Metaphysics. N. Y.: Macmil- 
lan, 1912. 

Patrick, G. T. W., Introduction to Philosophy. Boston: Hough- 
ton Mifflin, 1924. 

PauLsEN, F., Introduction to Philosophy. N. Y.: Holt, 1898. 

Perry, R. B., Approach to Philosophy. N. Y.: Scribner, 1905. 

RoBINsoN, J. H., The Mind in the Making. N. Y.: Harper, 


192. 
Royce, Spirit of Modern thin Lanes Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 
1892. Pp. 1-24. 


RuSsELL, B., Problems of Pi sob ee N. Y.: Holt, n.d. 

RYAN, J. H., An Introduction to Philosophy, N. Y.: Macmillan, 
1924. 

Dera G., Winds of Doctrine. London: Dent, 1913. 

SCHOPENHAUER, A., The World as Will and Idea. London: Paul, 
19006. 

SHELDON, W. H., The Strife of Systems and Productive Duality. 
Harvard Univ. Press, 1918. 

Taytor, A. E., Elements of Metaphysics. N. Y.: Macmillan, 
1909. 

Witson, G. A., “Philosophy over Against Science,” Phil. Rev., 
31 (1922), 257-268. 


CHAPTER II 


Boopin, J. E., Truth and Reality. N. Y.: Macmillan, rgrtr. 
BosANQugET, B., Implication and Linear Inference. London: Mac- 
millan, 1920. 

BRADLEY, F. H., Essays on Truth and Reality. Oxford, 1914. 

Carr, H. W., The Problem of Truth. London: Jack, n.d. 

DeEwEY, J., Essays in Experimental Logic. University of Chicago 
Press, 1916. 

Drake, D., et. al., Essays in Critical Realism: London: Macmil- 
lan, 1920. 

Hort, E. B., et. al., The New Realism. N.Y.: Macmillan, 1912. 

James, W., The Meaning of Truth. N. Y.: Longmans, 1909. 


CHAP TERS) TaIV 369 


Joacutm, H., The Nature of Truth. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 
1906. 

MacinTosH, D. C., The Problem of Knowledge. N. Y.: Mac- 
millan, 1915. 

MontacuE, W. P., The Ways of Knowing. London: George 
Allen & Unwin, 1925. 

Moore, A. W., “Some Lingering Misconceptions of Instrumental- 
ism,” Jour. Phil., 17 (1920), 514-519. 

Pertrce, C. 8., Chance, Love and Logic. N. Y.: Harcourt, Brace 
& Co., 1923. 

Roprinson, D. S., The Principles of Reasoning. N. Y.: Appleton, 
1924. 

Rocers, A. K., What is Truth? N.H.: Yale University Press, 
1922. 

Royce, J., The Philosophy of Loyalty. N. Y.: Macmillan, 1908. 

SorLeY, W. R., Moral Values and the Idea of God. N. Y.: Mac- 
millan, 1921. 


CtAP LER DES 


Most references for Chapter II also contain material on the 
subject matter of Chapter III. The following may be noted in 
addition: 


Bowne, B. P., Theory of Thought and Knowledge. N. Y.: Am. 
Bk. Co., 1897. 

Rocers, A. K., English and American Philosophy since 1800. 
N. Y.: Macmillan, 1923. 

SMITH, N. K., Prolegomena to an Idealist Theory of Knowledge. 
London: Macmillan, 1924. 


CHAPTER IV 


BroaD, C. D., Scientific Thought. N. Y.: Harcourt, Brace & 
Co.;:rO23; 

Comstock, D. F., and Trotanp, L. T., Matter and Electricity. 
N. Y.: Van Nostrand, 1921. 

EINSTEIN, A., Relativity. N. Y.: Holt. 


370 BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Hopson, E. W., The Domain of Natural Science. N. Y.: Mac. 
millan, 1923. 

MiturkaNn, R. A., The Electron. Completely revised ed. Univ. 
of Chicago Press, 1924. 

Mitts, J., The Realities of Modern Science. N. Y.: Macmillan, 
IQIQ. 

NorpMANN, C., Einstein and the Universe. N. Y.: Holt, 
TO22) 

OESTERREICH, K., Das Weltbild der Gegenwart. Berlin: Mittler, 
1920. 

Ritcuig, A. D., Scientific Method. N. Y.: Harcourt, Brace & 
Co., 1923. 

Roucter, L., Philosophy and the New Physics. Philadelphia: 
Blakiston, 1924. 

RussELL, B., The ABC of Atoms. N. Y.: Dutton, 1923. 

RUTHERFORD, E., “The Constitution of Matter,’ Enc. Brit., 12th 
ed. New Volumes, Vol. 31, pp. 880-883. 

SHELDON, W. H., “Is There Material Substance?” Jour. Phil., 20 
(1923), 544 ff. 

TuHomson, J. A., The Outline of Science. 4 vols., N. Y.: Putnam, 
igz2, 

WHITEHEAD, A. N., The Concept of Nature. Cambridge Uni- 
versity Press, 1920. 

, Science and the Modern World. N. Y.: Macmillan, 

1925. 


CHAPTER V 


On universals see bibliography on Chapters II and III and 
any good texts in logic. The following references are chiefly on 
values. 


BeRGuUER, G., La Notion de Valeur. Geneva. 
BIBLIOGRAPHY, Jour. Phil. 10 (1913), 472-476. 
BosANQuET, B., The Principle of Individuality and Value. Lon- 
don: Macmillan, r9o12. Pp. 291-317. 
, The Value and Destiny of the Individual. Lon- 
don: Macmillan, 1913. 


CHAPTERS IV-V 371 


BosANQuET, B., Some Suggestions in Ethics. London: Macmillan, 
1918. 

Bouctf, C., “Valeurs économiques et valeurs ideales,” Revue de 
VInstitut de Sociologie. Vol. II, No. 2, March, 1921. 
BRENTANO, F., Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis. Leipzig: 

Duncker & Humblot, 1889. 
Tr., HacueE, C., The Origin of the Knowledge of Right and 
Wrong. London: Constable, 1902. 

BricHTMAN, E. S., ‘Neo-realistic Theories of Value,” in E. C. 
Wilm, Studies in Philosophy and Theology. N. Y.: The 
Abingdon Press, 1922. Pp. 22-64. 

Catkins, M. W., The Good Man and the Good. N. Y.: Macmil- 
lan, 1918. 

Dewey, J., “The Problem of Values,” Jour. Phil., 10 (1913), 
268-269. 

EHRENFELS, C. V., System der Werttheorie. Leipzig: Reisland, 
1897, 1808. 

EvEerETT, W. G., Moral Values. N. Y.: Holt, 1918. 

GREEN, T. H., Prolegomena to Ethics. 5th ed. Oxford: Claren- 
don Press, 1906. 

H6FFDING, H., Problems of Philosophy. N.Y.: Macmillan, 1905. 
Pp. 153-186. 

Knupson, A. C., ‘“The Significance of Religious Values for Reli- 
gious Knowledge,” Meth. Rev., 106 (1923), 341-352. 
LEIGHTON, J. A., Man and the Cosmos. N. Y.: Appleton, 1922. 

Pp. 395-433, 434-480. 

MACKENZIE, J. S., Ultimate Values in the Light of Contemporary 
Thought. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1924. 

MEINoNG, ALEXxIUS, Psychologisch-Ethische Untersuchungen sur 
Werth-theorie. Graz: Leuschner & Lubensky, 1894. 

MUNSTERBERG, H., The Eternal Values. Boston: Houghton 
Mifflin, 1909. 

Parmer, G. H., The Nature of Goodness. Boston: Houghton 
Mifflin, 1903. 

Perry, R. B., “The Definition of Value,” Jour. Phil., 11 (1914), 
I4I-162. 

Picarp, M., Values: Immediate and Contributory, and Their 
Interrelation. N.Y. U. Press, 1920. 


372 BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Quick, O. C., “The Humanistic Theory of Value: A Criticism,” 
Mind, 19 (1910), 218-230. 

ScHILLER, F. C. S., “Value,” ERE., Vol. XII, 584-580. 

SortEy, W. R., Moral Values and the Idea of God. Cambridge 
Univ. Press, 1919, 1921. 

SPAULDING, E. G., The New Rationalism. N. Y.: Holt, 1918. 
Pp. 66-71, 496-507. 

Urzsan, W. M., Valuation: Its Nature and Laws London and 
N. Y.: Allen, 1909. 

Wricnt, W. K., “The Evolution of Values from Instincts,” Phal. 
Rev., 24 (1915), 165-185. 


CHAPTER VI 


Bove, B. H., Fundamentals of Education. N. Y.: Macmillan, 
Ig2I. 

Boopin, J. E., A Realistic Universe. N. Y.: Macmillan, 1916. 
Pp. 115-205. 

BosANQguEtT, B., Three Chapters on the Nature of Mind. Lon- 
don: Macmillan, 19232. 

Brapiey, F. H., Appearance and Reality. N. Y.: Macmillan, 
1906. Pp. 75-120. 

Burns, C. D., The Contact Between Minds. London: Macmil- 
lan, 1923. 

CaLkins, M. W., A First Book in Psychology. 4th ed. N. Y.: 
Macmillan, 1914. See bibliography in Appendix. 

, “The Self in Scientific Psychology,’ Am. Jour. 
Psych., 26 (1915), 495-524. See bibliography pp. 496-7. 
, “The Truly Psychological Behaviorism,” Psych. 

Rev., 28 (1921), 1-18. 

Carr, H. W., ‘Why the Mind Seems to be, Yet Cannot be, Pro- 
duced by the Brain,” Phil. Rev., 23 (1914) 257-270. 

Dercum, F. X., The Physiology of Mind. Philadelphia: Saun- 
ders, 1922. 

Heatu, A. G., The Moral and Social Significance of the Concep- 
tion of Personality. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921. 

Hot, E. B., The Concept of Consciousness. London: Allen, 
IQI4. 


CHAPTERS V-VI 373 


James, W., The Principles of Psychology. N. Y.: Holt, 1890. 

Larrp, J., Problems of the Self. London: Macmillan, 1917. 

McDoucat., W., Body and Mind. 5th ed. N. Y.: Macmillan, 
1920. Pp. 355-379. 

Merz, J. T., A Fragment on the Human Mind. Edinburgh: 
Blackwood, 19109. 

Moore, J. S., The Foundations of Psychology. Princeton Univ. 
Press, 1921. See bibliographies. 

ParkER, D. H., The Self and Nature. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. 
Press, 1917. 

Pratt, J. B., Matter and Spirit. N. Y.: Macmillan, 1922. 

RicHArpDson, C. A., Spiritual Pluralism. Cambridge Univ. Press, 
IgIQ. 

Ropack, A. A., Behaviorism and Psychology. Cambridge: Univ. 
Bk. Store, 1923. 

Rocers, A. K., ‘Some Recent Theories of Consciousness,” Mind, 
29 (1920), 294-312. 

Royce, J.. The World and the Individual. N. Y.: Macmillan, 
1904. Pp. 418 ff. 

RusseEL_, B., The Analysis of Mind. London: Allen, 1921. 

SINGER, E. A., Mind as Behavior. Columbus: Adams, 1924. 

STERN, L. W., Person und Sache. Bd. 1, Ableitung und Grund- 
lehre des kritischen Personalismus. Bd. I, Die Menschliche 
Personlichkeit. Leipzig: Barth, 1906 (1923); I917 (1923). 

StronG, C. A., Why the Mind has a Body. N. Y.: Macmillan, 
1908. 

Warp, J., Psychological Principles. 2nd ed. Cambridge Uni- 
versity Press, 1920. Esp. pp. 29-41. 

Watson, J. B., Psychology from the Standpoint of the Behavior- 
ist. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1919. 

Wi, E. C., “Selfhood,” in Philosophical Essays in Honor of 
James Edwin Creighton. N. Y.: Macmillan, 1917. Pp. 
277-289. 

WooppripceE, F. J. E., Studies in Philosophy and Psychology by 
Former Students of Charles Edward Garman. Boston: 
Houghton Mifflin, 1906. Pp. 137-166. 


374 BIBLIOGRAPHY 


CHAPTER VII 


The books mentioned in the bibliography of Chapter I may 
be consulted for Chapter VII. Note also: 


Bowne, B. P., Metaphysics. Rev. ed. N. Y.: American Bk. 
Co., 1898. 

BRIGHTMAN, E. S., “Modern Idealism,” Jour. Phil., 17 (1920), 
533-550. Other articles: Personalist, 2 (1921), 162-171, 
254-266; Meth. Rev., 104 (1921), 1-28; 524-535; Person- 
alist, 3 (1922), 254-259. 

Cavxins, M. W., The Persistent Problems of Philosophy. 5th ed. 
N. Y.: Maamillan, 1925. 

FLEWELLING, R. T., Personalism and the Problems of Plilos- 
ophy. N. Y.: Abingdon Press, 1915. 

Knupson, A. C., Bowne and Personalism. (In preparation.) 

LEIGHTON, J. A., Man and the Cosmos. N. Y.: Appleton, 1922. 

Royce, J., The World and the Individual. See Chapter VI. 


Witson, G. A., The Self and Its World. N. Y.: Macmillan, 
1926. 


CHAPTER VIII 


Conkxktin, E. G. The Direction of Human Evolution. N. Y.: 
Scribner, 1921. 

DriescH, H., Die Philosophie des Organischen. Leipzig: Engel- 
mann, 1921. 

—, Science and Philosophy of the Organism. English 

tr. of preceding. 

Eucken, R., The Main Currents of Modern Thought. N. Y.: 
Scribner, 1912. Pp. 165-194. 

Gruman, B. I., “The Design Argument Survives Darwinism,” 
Jour. Phil., 21 (1924), 29-36. 

HALDANE, J. S., Mechanism, Life and Personality. N.Y.: 1914. 

HENDERSON, L. J., The Fitness of the Environment. N. Y.: Mac- 
millan, 1913. 

Hosuouse, L. T., Development and Purpose. N.Y.: Macmillan, 
IQI3. 


CHAPTERS VII-IX 31s 


Matuews, A. P., “The Goal of Evolution,’ Yale Review, Jan., 
Ig2t. 

Morcan, C. L., Emergent Evolution. N. Y.: Holt, 1923. 

Newman, H. H., Readings in Evolution, Genetics and Eugenics. 
Univ. of Chicago Press, 1921. 

Osporn, H. F., The Origin and Evolution of Life. N.Y.: Scrib- 
ner, 1917. 

Rocers, A. K., The Religious Conception of the World. N. Y.: 
Macmillan, 1907. 

SCHOPENHAUER, A., The World as Wil and Idea. Vol. III, 
PP. 77-95. 

Simpson, J. Y., The Spiritual Interpretation of Nature. N. Y.: 
Doran, 1924. 

VAIHINGER, H., Die Philosophie des Als Ob. Leipzig: Meiner, 
1920. English tr., The Philosophy. of “As If.” N. Y.: Har- 
court, Brace & Co., 1924. 

Warp, J., Naturalism and Agnosticism. 3d ed., London: Black, 
1906. 

, The Realm of Ends. N. Y.: Putnam, 1g11. 

Wim, E. C., The Problem of Religion. Boston: Pilgrim Press, 


1912. Pp. 79-109. 


CHAPTER [IX 


Many of the works previously mentioned, especially those on 
Chapters I, IV, and VIII, bear on the topic of this chapter. 


Bercson, H., Creative Evolution. N. Y.: Holt, 1913. 

Hosson, E. W., The Domain of Natural Science. N. Y.: Macmil- 
lan, 1923. 

Macautay, W. H., “Motion, Laws of.” Enc. Brit., 18, p. 906. 

MonracuE, W. P., “Variation, Heredity and Consciousness,” 
Proc. Ar. Soc., (1920-1921), 13-50. 

PAULSEN, F., Immanuel Kant. Pp. 270-277. 

PetzotpT, J., “Mechanistische Naturauffassung und Rela- 
tivitatstheorie,” Ann. d. Phil., 2 (1921), 447-462. 

Peirce, C. S., Chance, Love and Logic. N. Y.: Harcourt, Brace 
& Co., 1923. Pp. 179-201. 


376 BIBLIOGRAPHY 


SCHULTZ, J., “Die Fiktion vom Universum als Maschine und die 
Korrelation des Geschehens,” Ann. d. Phil., 2 (1921), 521- 
531. 

SmiTH, G. B., “Mechanism,” in Mathews & Smith, Dictionary of 
Religion and Ethics. P. 275. 

WINDELBAND, W., LEinleitung in die Philosophie. Tubingen: 
Mohr, 1920, 2nd ed. 

Wricut, W. K., A Student’s Philosophy of Religion. N. Y.: 
Macmillan, 1922. Pp. 305-337. 


CHAPTER X 


Bowne, B. P., Theism. N.Y.: American Book Co., 1902. 
, I'he Immanence of God. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 
1905. 
BRIGHTMAN, E.S., Religious Values. N.Y.: Abingdon Press, 1925. 
, Immortality in Post-Kantian Idealism. Cambridge: 
Harvard University Press, 1925. 

Cor, G. A., Psychology of Religion. University of Chicago Press, 
1916. 

DrakE, D., Problems of Religion. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1916. 

GatLoway, G., The Philosophy of Religion. N. Y.: Scribner, 
IQI4. 

Hocxine, W. E., The Meaning of God in Human Experience: 
A Philosophical Study of Religion. N.H.: Yale University 
Press, 1912, 1924. 

HOoERNLE, R. F. A., Matter, Life, Mind and God. N. Y.: Har- 
court, Brace & Co., n.d (1923?). } 

Horrpinc, H., The Philosophy of Religion. London: Macmil- 
lan, 1906. 

Knupson, A. C., “The Significance of Religious Values for Reli- 
gious Knowledge,” Meth. Rev., 106 (1923), 341-352. 

, Present Tendencies in Religious Thought. N. Y.: 
Abingdon Press, 1924. 

Leusa, J. H., A Psychological Study of Religion. Chicago: Open 
Court” Pub? Co,, "1923: 

Miu, J. S., Three Essays on Religion. London: 1874. 


CHAPTERS IX-XI 377 


Moors, G. F., The Birth and Growth of Religion. N. Y.: Scrib- 
ner, 1923. 

Mukerji, D. G., “The Holy One of Benares,” Atlantic Monthly, 
134 (1924), 188-199. 

Otto, R., Das Heilige. 6. Aufl. Breslau: Trewendt & Granier, 
1921. (Recently translated into English.) 

Pratt, J. B., The Religious Consciousness. N. Y.: Macmil- 
lan, 1920. 

PRINGLE-PatTison, A. S., The Idea of God in the Light of Recent 
Philosophy. Oxford Univ. Press, 1917. 

Royce, J., The Sources of Religious Insight. N. Y.: Scribner, 
IQI2. 

STRICKLAND, F. L., The Psychology of Religious Experience. 
N. Y.: The Abingdon Press, 1924. 

Sucrmor!, K., The Principles of the Moral Empire. Univ. of 
London Press, 19109. 

TsanorF, R. A., The Problem of Immortality. N. Y.: Macmil- 
lan, 1924. 

Wuite, A. D., A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology. 
N. Y.: Appleton, rg1o. 

Wi, E. C., The Problem of Religion. Boston: Pilgrim Press, 
IQI2. 

Wricnut, W. K., A Student’s Philosophy of Religion. N. Y.: 
Macmillan, 1922. 


CHAPTER XI 


BrRIGHTMAN, E. S., “Philosophy in American Education,” The 

Personalist, 1 (1920), July. Pp. 15-28. 
, Lhe Contribution of Philosophy to the Theory of 

Religious Education. Boston Univ. Bulletin, XIII, No. 25, 
July 15, 1924. 

FULLERTON, G. S., Introduction to Philosophy. N. Y.: Mac- 
millan, 1920. 

Hupson, J. W., The Truths We Live By. N. Y.: Appleton, 
Ig21. 

Jones, H., Idealism as a Practical Creed. Glasgow: Maclehose, 
1909. 


378 BIBLIOGRAPHY 


LEIGHTON, J. A., The Field of Philosophy. N. Y.: Appleton, 
LO2 3. ED eons 1 

RussEL., B., The Problems of Philosophy. N. Y.: Holt, n.d. 
Pp. 236-250. 

STUCKENBERG, J. H. W., Jntroduction to the Study of Philosophy. 
N. Y.: Armstrong, 1888. 


LEXICON 





PREFATORY NOTE 


The following brief lexicon of technical terms and names of 
philosophers serves also as a general index. 

References are given to the chapter and section (or subsection) 
of the book where the topic is treated in the following form: 
VIII, 5, (2) means Chapter VIII, §5, subsection (2). Deriva- 
tives from a fundamental term are not given when the meaning 
is obvious. E.g., words ending in -ist and -istic are implied by 
words in -zsm. When a word is printed in italics, that word is 
defined elsewhere in the lexicon (except in titles of books). 

While the author is responsible for both form and content of 
the definitions, this lexicon owes much to the following sources, 
roughly in the order named: Thormeyer, Philosophisches WGrter- 
buch; Eisler, Handworterbuch der Philosophie; Hastings, En- 
clopedia of Religion and Ethics: the lexicon in the eighth edition 
of Falckenberg, Geschichte der neueren Philosophie; Encyclopedia 
Britannica; Baldwin, Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology; 
Mathews and Smith, Dictionary of Religion and Ethics. 

It should be noted that all philosophical terms may be used in 
special senses by any writer. 


A 


Absolute. That which is com- 
plete in itself, not limited by 


anything outside itself. VII, 5, 
(ry, 
Abstract. Popularly, either what 


is hard to understand, or (usu- 
ally) what cannot be perceived 
by the senses. In philosophical 
usage, sometimes the latter, but 
usually (under the influence of 
Hegel) separated from its con- 
nection in reality, as a hand 
apart from a body. V, 1: ~ See 
concrete. VIII, 5, (6). 

Acquaintance. Immediate knowl- 
edge, intuition as distinguished 
from description by concepts. 
III, 6. 


381 


Activity. The initiation of change. 

Agnosticism. Theory that igno- 
rance about philosophical or re- 
ligious principles is the rational 
outcome of thought. 

Analytic Method. Defined I, 11. 

Anaxagoras. Greek philosopher, 
about 500-428 B. c., who taught 
that there was an infinite variety 
of elements and that “Nous” 
(reason) was supreme. VII, 6. 

Animism. Primitive belief that all 
living things or natural objects 
are inhabited by a soul. VIII, 3. 

Anthropomorphism. Interpreta- 
tion of reality (especially of 
God) as like man. Extreme a. 
attributes a body and other hu- 


382 
man limitations to God. VI, 11, 
Ct). VT 3, C4). 

Antinomy. Two. contradictory 


propositions (thesis and antithe- 
sis), each of which can be proved 
to be true if their common pre- 
supposition be true. V, 14. 
VIII, 5, (7). 

Aristippus. Of Cyrene, N. Africa; 
a hedonist (435-355 B. Cc.) who 
believes that human happiness 
consists in securing pleasure and 
avoiding pain. Present pleasure 
is preferred to future; and bod- 


Bacon, Sir Francis. English phi- 


losopher (1561-1626), essayist, 
Lord Chancellor, founder of 
modern interest in inductive 


logic) |) TI. ¥. 

Behaviorism. Methodological b. 
is what is commonly called the 
method of objective observation 
in psychology; the study of the 
consciousness of others through 
a study of their behavior. Meta- 
physical b. is the doctrine that 
consciousness is nothing but the 
behavior of the organism. VI, 
2 and 8. 

Being. Any entity or object. 
Whatever may be mentioned or 
reckoned with. See existence, 
reality. 

Bergson, Henri. A French think- 
€® (1850- ) who holds that 
intuition is superior to intellect, 
that reality is a stream of con- 
stant change and development. 
He believes in freedom and at- 
tacks mechanism. His great 
work is Creative Evolution. I, 2. 
TL Ould Vie Ge CSD ieee, 2a ons 

Berkeley, George. Bishop of 
Cloyne, Ireland. An tdealist, or 
personalist, (1685-1753) who held 
that only spirits and their ideas 
exist, and that the being of mat- 

_ter consists entirely in its being 


LEXICON 


ily to mental. Self-control is, 
however, essential. 

Aristotle. Greek philosopher (384- 
322 B. c.). Pupil of Plato. One 
of world’s greatest thinkers. 
Taught development from pure 
matter toward pure form. 
Founded formal logic and nu- 
merous sciences and branches of 
philosophy. Believed in God, and 
his philosophy was used as basis 
by St. Thomas Aquinas. I, Io. 
LI riand!6o)-4T Eons LV eae 
4 and>7;>(2)0 en VIAIeeV Lee 


perceived (esse is percipt). When 
things are not perceived by us, 
God perceives them. His chief 
work is A Treatise Concerning 
the Principles of Human Knowl- 
Ci Le Rn SA Sa @ RLS VT Ge de J 
CA)" CC) MoV rand Sie Ov Lees 

Boole, G. English mathematician 
(1816-1854) and founder of 
symbolic logic. Author of The 
Mathematical Analysis of Logic, 
1847. 

Bosanquet, Bernard (pron. Bo- 
sanket). English speculative phi- 
losopher (1848-1923). Contrib- 
uted to idealistic logic of co- 
herence and metaphysics of value. 
Influenced by F. H. Bradley. 
Lier Cad vont oii 

Bowne, Borden Parker. Ameri- 
can founder and popularizer of 
personalism (1847-1910). Held 
that only persons are real, and 
that reality consists of a society 
of interacting persons, dependent 
on the Supreme Person, God, 
yet relatively free. Influenced by 
Berkeley, Kant, and Lotge. His 
chief works are, Theory of 
Thought and Knowledge, Meta- 
physics, Theism, and Personal- 
$590.0 Ty Qi EL, Yoon LLB OD eee 


(1) and (4), (c), and 7, (4) and 
10. TAG 12; ays 


LEXICON 


Bradley, F. H. Contemporary 
English absolutist (1846-1924). 
Neo-hegelian logician; author of 


Calkins, Mary Whiton. Contem- 
porary personalistic absolutist 
( 1863- ). Exponent of self- 
psychology. Teaches at Welles- 
ley College. Chief works, Per- 
sistent Problems of Philosophy 
and First Book in Psychology. 
III, 3 and 6. V,5, (4), (c). VI, 
2, (1), (a). VII, 6, (3). 

Category. Fundamental principle, 
implied or presupposed by all ex- 
perience (or by some important 
type of experience, as our sense 
experience), III, 9. 

Cause. The use of the word in 
science is to be distinguished 
from its use in philosophy. By 
c. science means the invariable 
antecedent of a given event 
or complex of events; and such 
c. is often called empirical, phe- 
nomenal or inducittve. Philoso- 
phy employs the term to mean 
the ultimate power that produces 
the being of anything; in this 
sense c. is described as meta- 
physical, noumenal or ontologi- 
cal. There is a tendency in recent 
times to restrict the term to its 
empirical use. The reader should 
consult a history of philosophy for 
Aristotle’s four uses of the term; 
or see Webster’s New Interna- 
tional Dictionary, s.v. “cause.” 
Les. VILE. 4, 

Chicago School. See Dewey. 

Class. The collection of entities 
defined by any concept. 


Coherence. See II, 12. The co- 


Data. Facts given in experience. 
Deduction. Logical inference from 
ote 
premises. Proceeds from _ the 


383 


Principles of Logic and Ap- 
pearance and Reality. I, 8. 
Lig 


herence criterion is made the 
basis of the whole book from 
III to XI. 

Comte, Auguste. French philoso- 
pher (1798-1857), founder of 
posttivioms TV {/> 3) (O)5 > X, 


3) 

Concept. A term that defines 
what is common to the objects 
to which it applies. V, 1-5. 

Concrete. Antonym of abstract. 
In philosophy, taken in connec- 
tion with its true context. A 
number is understood concretely 
when seen in relation to the sys- 
tem of mathematical truth. 

Consciousness. Awareness; what 
ceases when we become uncon- 
scious; all the states and proc- 
esses of thought, feeling, will, 
self-experience, etc. Strictly 
speaking, indefinable. VII. 

Consensus Gentium. Literally, “agree- 
ment of peoples,” general agree- 
ment. II, 6. 

Content. Antonym of form, syn- 
onym of general meaning of 
matter, 

Correspondence. A proposed cri- 
terion of truth. II, ro. 

Creighton, James Edwin. Logi- 
cian and ¢dealist (1861-1924). 
Standpoint close to Bosanquet’s. 
Editor of The Philosophical Re- 
view. II, 11. 

Criticism. Careful and thorough 
examination. Used in technical 
sense of Kant’s philosophy. 

Custom. See II, 4. 


general to the particular: ws. 
induction. 


Deism. Defined VIII, 3. Con- 


384 


trasted with theism and panthe- 
ism. 

Democritus. Greek philosopher of 
Abdera (about 460-360 B.c.). A 
rationalist (holding that thought 
rather than perception is the test 
of truth) and an atomist (hold- 
ing that reality is made up of 
material particles or atoms). He 
reduces qualitative to quantita- 
tive differences. IV, 6, (1). V, 
5, (4), (a). VIII, 3. IX, 2, (4). 

Descartes, René. Great French 
philosopher (1596-1650). Re- 
garded as founder of modern 


philosophy. A continental ra- 
tionaltst, epistemological and 
metaphysical dualist. I, 11, (1). 


Die PAS Se Vid, OS 2)G 

Description. Knowledge by con- 
cepts; contrasted with acquaint- 
ance. 

Determinism. The theory that 
every state of consciousness is 
the necessary effect of previous 
conditions. VIII, 4 and 5. 

Dewey, John. One of the fore- 
most living American philoso- 
phers (1850- ).  Instrumen- 
talist, behaviorist, founder of 
“Chicago School” of pragma- 
tism. Has contributed exten- 
sively to educational theory. 
Views best stated in Reconstruc- 
tion in Philosophy, 1, 7. II, 11. 


Ehrenfels, Christian von. Aus- 
trian. Contributor to the psy- 
chology of value. V, 6. VII, 
7s, (2). | My 7 

Empiricism. Theory 
knowledge is derived from ex- 
perience (and none from rea- 
son). Experience is usually 
treated as sense-experience : hence 
e. is then called sensationalism. 
See Hume. V, 1-5. Antonym, 
rationalism. 

Entity. Whatever may be talked 


that all . 


LEXICON 


Ti} ig, (2): V, 6; ‘and 13) iG 
ViIT;<r0.1 AT 6, 

Dialectic. Term used in various 
senses by Plato, Kant, Hegel, 
and others. Commonly used, as 
by Hegel, of the tendency of 
thought (history, nature, etc.) 
to advatice by giving rise to con- 
tradictory conceptions (thesis 
and antithesis) which compel a 
readjustment of thesis and an- 
tithesis in a new synthesis. See 
antinomy. 

Double Aspect Theory. Theory 
that every real object has two 
aspects, one appearing as matter, 
the other being experienced as 
consciousness. VI, 10. 

Driesch, Hans. Distinguished 
German biologist and _ philoso- 
pher (1867- ). Vitalist. Chief 
work, The Science and Philoso- 
phy of the Organism (Die Phi- 
losophie des Organischen). IX, 
2k 1 )¢ 

Dualism. In general, the recogni- 
tion of two irreducible princi- 
ples. In ethical and religious d. 
the two principles are good and 
evil (God and Satan); VII, 7. 
In epistemological d. they are 
idea and object; III, 5-7. In 
metaphysical d. they are mind 
and matter; VII, 6. Antonyms, 
monism, pluralism. 


about or mentioned, whether 
subjective or objective, real or 
imaginary. A colorless word for 


object. 
Epicurus. Greek hedonist (341- 
270 B. c.). Believes pleasures of 


mind superior to those of body. 
In metaphysics a follower of 
Democritus. V,7, (1). 
Epistemology. Theory of knowl- 
edge. III. ‘See Ferrier. III,’ 1. 
Essence. Term used by scholasti- 
cism to mean either that by 


LEXICON 


which a thing is what it is or 
the concept of the thing. As 
used by American critical real- 
ism, €. means immediately expe- 
rienced quality, “data, character 
complexes, logical entities.’ E. 
is distinguished from e-ristence. 

Ethics. The normative science of 
morals or conduct, 1 e., of vol- 
untary behavior. 

Eucken, Rudolph. Contemporary 
German idealist, now retired 
(1846- ). Holds philosophy 
of the spiritual life. VIII, 2. 

Evaluation. The assigning of 
“true” value to any object rela- 
tive to some standard or cri- 
terion. A critical or normative 
valuation. 

Everett, Walter Goodnow. Pro- 
fessor of philosophy at Brown 
University and specialist in the- 

. ory of moral values (1860-  ), 
WV0104 (4) 54V LI, 10. 


Feeling. See II, 7. 

Ferrier, J. F. Scotch idealist 
(1808-1864). Coined the term 
epistemology. 

Fichte, Johann Gottlieb. Ger- 
man post-Kantian idealist (1762- 
1814) who holds that the uni- 
verse is an ego that posits a 
non-Ego. He emphasizes the 
primacy of the practical reason, 
and regards the world as “the 
material of our duty under the 
form of sense.” His Founda- 
tion of the Whole Science of 
Knowledge has been said to be 
the most difficult work of the 
history of philosophy; while his 
Vocation of Man is one of the 
clearest and simplest. His Ad- 
dresses to the German Nation 


Genetic. Having to do with the 
growth, development, or evolu- 


385 


Evolution. Development. In par- 
ticular the belief that higher 


forms of life are descended 
from lower forms. VIII, 4, 
Cayce CS )s 
Existence. Sometimes used as 


synonym of being; generally in 
a more restricted sense, as of 
what has a definable place in the 
space-time of the physical world 
or of what occurs as a factor in 


a conscious process. See es- 
sence. 
Experience. Any and all con- 


sciousness as it occurs (German, 
“Erlebnis”); or sense percep- 
tions in particular. Or con- 
sciousness as organized and in- 
terpreted by the categories 
(German, “Erfahrung”). 

Extra-Mental. Other than or 
outside of all consciousness or 
mind. 


were of great political influence. 
Poa Vins. Ca): ci 

Form. The way in which any- 
thing exists, or its relations. 
That which has f. is called mat- 
ter in the most general sense. F. 
is the “how” of anything; mat- 
ter, its “what.” In philosophy 
the adjective “formal” means 
only “relating to form.” &. g., 
formal logic (which deals with 
the “how” of deductive thought), 
formal ethics (which deals with 
the “how” of conduct,—its in- 
tent). 

Fringe. That part of the field of 
consciousness which is less clear 
and vivid than the center or fo- 
cus of attention. VI, 1. 


tion of organisms. VIII, 4, 


(3). 


386 LEXICON 

God, V;\'13) (2) and “¢3)2)) VOL, idealist (1836-1882). Author 
Bo) RY aes. Prolegomena to Ethics. V, 7, 

Goethe. I, 11, (4). (4). 

Green, Thomas Hill. English 

Hegel, G. W. F. German (1770- Heraclitus. Of Ephesus (540- 
1831): was the great exponent 480). Philosopher of change, 


of objective or absolute zdealism 
(speculative philosophy). The 
universe is for him one absolute 
spirit or Idea (“Idee”), which 
expresses itself by an eternal 
dialectical process. Thinking and 
being are, for him, identical. He 
made important contributions to 
logic, political and moral phi- 
losophy, philosophy of history, 
of art and of religion, and his- 
tory of philosophy. He was ex- 
traordinarily influential, despite 
the fact that he was neglected in 
Germany for a half century 
after his death. His chief works 
are, Phenomenology of the 
Spirit, Science of Logic, Ency- 
clopedia of the Philosophical 
Sciences, See antinomy. I, 2 
andierd ie and (4d Ligand 
6) WEES) ay it andioy odbVe. I. 
V, I and 5, (4), (c), and I2and 
13, (CLM Uh 


Idea. Used in various senses by 
different thinkers. 1) Plato: a 
real universal, an hypostatized 
concept. 2) Locke: any object 
of consciousness. 3) Hume: a 
copy of an “impression” (4 e., 
sensation). 4) Kant: a rational 
concept of the unconditioned 
(self, world, God). 5) Hegel: 
the Absolute Spirit that includes 
all reality. 6) Current: usually, 
any state of consciousness. 

Idealism. The theory that realtty 
is of the nature of mind or con- 


teaching that all things flow and 
change except the law (logos) 
of change. 

Hocking, William Ernest. Amer- 
ican idealist and philosopher of 
religion (1873- ). At Har- 
vard University. Chief work, 
The Meaning of God in Human 
Experience. V, 6. 

Hoffding, Harald. Danish psy- 
chologist and philosopher of re- 
ligion (1843- ). Author, Phi- 
losophy of Religion. X, 4, (2). 

Hume, David. Great Scotch em- 
pirictst (1711-1776). Influenced 
Kant. Chief works, Treatise on 
Human Nature, and Enquiry 
Concerning Human Understand- 
$1193) SO LV oh Ooo ka aan 
CO Ey OAS PRK SMT. Chee 

Hypostatize. To treat an abstrac- 
tion (concept, universal) as a 
separate and distinct substance. 


VS Re 


sciousness. There are many va- 
rieties of i. VII, 8 and 10. 

Immanent. Literally, dwelling in. 
Present in. An i. God is pres- 
ent in the world; ani. soul, pres- 
ent in consciousness; an i. object, 
present in possible experience. 
X, 5 and 6. VI,5 and 9. Anto- 
nym, transcendent. 

Immediate. That which is pres- 
ent to the mind without any in- 
tervening object or process; what 
is not meditate. II, 9. III, 4. 

Immortality. See X, 7. 


ras ges 


LEXICON 


Induction. The process of arriv- 
ing at universals by an investiga- 
tion of particulars. Opposed to 
deduction. So-called ‘complete 
i.” is a universal based on the ex- 
amination of every particular 
included under it. V, 5. 

Instinct. See II, 3. 

Instrumentalism. The form of 
pragmatism held by Dewey and 
the Chicago School. 

Interaction. The fact that either 


James, William. American psy- 
chologist and philosopher (1842- 
1910). Gifted with a brilliant 
literary style, was the chief pop- 
ularizer of pragmatism, the the- 
ory that truth is tested by prac- 
tical consequences. He was em- 
pirical; a believer in freedom, 
and in a finite God. His great- 


Kant,immanuel. German phi- 
losopher (1724-1804). May be 
grouped with Plato, Aristotle, 
Spinoza and Hegel as one of the 
greatest philosophers that have 
lived; many regard him as the 
greatest. His system (critt- 
cism) is rich and complex. He 
held to the ideality of space and 
time, the a priori necessity of 
the categories (cause being the 
chief), the activity of the mind 
in knowledge, the primacy of the 


Laird, John. Contemporary Eng- 
lish realist. Chief work, Prob- 
lems of the Self. VI, 5. 

Leibniz, G. W. German ration- 
alist and idealist (1646-1716). 
System (and book) called Mon- 
adology because he believed that 
reality consisted of monads 


L 


387 


one of two (or more) objects 
may cause changes in the other 
(or others). Used particularly 
of the 1. of mind and body. VI, 
LOW Loe) 21 CS) 

Introspection. The examination 
of one’s own consciousness. VI, 


2: 
Intuit. To have an intuition of. 
Intuition. An immediate percep- 
tion. II, 9. 


est works are, Psychology, Vari- 
eties of Religious. Experience, 
and Pragmatism. I, 2, 10 and 
Biehl Pet LEE POIs Vega): 
VII, 5,.(1) and: (3), 6, (11). 

Judgment. The activity of the 
mind in describing or interpret- 
ing reality. See proposition. 


practical (moral) over the the- 
oretic (speculative) reason; 
while things in themselves are 
unknowable, God, freedom, and 
immortality must, he held, be 
postulated by the practical rea- 
son. His masterpieces are Cri- 
tique of Pure Reason, Critique 
of Practical Reason, Critique of 
Judgment. I, 2 and 8. II, 1 
and Oy 1LL igeikeandy eit 
(3).0 MA, Tae 2 exon, 
(1). X, 3 and 4, (2). 


(centers of force, like souls). 
IV3: 9; C2). iG SA ee 

Locke, John. British empiricist 
(1632-1704). Dualist in epi- 
stemology and metaphysics. See 
idea. Chief work, An Essay 
Concerning Human Understand- 
anode Tp Boollie.cedl La. 


388 


Logic. The normative science of 
thought. See formal, deductive, 
inductive, mathematical logic, 
symbolic logic. II, 1. 


McDougall, William. Distin- 
guished British social psycholo- 
gist now teaching at Harvard 
University. Advocate of a pur- 
posive behaviorism. VIII, 3. 

Materialism. Theory that matter 
and its laws are all that there is 
or explain all. See naturalism. 


V TTj}9.\0'ViE) 0, 
Mathematical Logic. The sci- 
ence that expresses universal 


logical relations by mathematical 
symbols; symbolic logic. II, 1. 


Matter. In general, antonym of 
form,—what anything is, its 
content. More specifically, that 


physical entity that is supposed 
to be the bearer of energy and 
to occupy space. 

Mechanism. The theory that ev- 
erything is completely to be ex- 
plained as a necessary result of 
previous conditions; also, any 
particular system that is so de- 
termined. VIII, IX. 

Meinong, Alexius. Austrian spe- 
cialist in theory of value, logic, 
and epistemology (1854-1921). 
Realist. V, 6 and 7, (1), 12. 


Naturalism. Theory that phys- 
ical nature (matter and its laws) 
is all that there is or is a suf- 
ficient explanation of all. See 
materialism. VII, 9. 

Neo-Realism. New realism. A 
name given to a movement in 
recent English and American 
philosophy, having in common 
their hostility to idealism, the 
doctrine that the object is inde- 


LEXICON 


Lotze, H. German  personalist 
(1817-1881) and_ self-psycholo- 
gist. V, 5, (4), (c) and 6. VI, 5. 


Metaphysics. The attempt to find 
a true account of reality. IV, 1. 
VII. 

Method. See I, 5 and 11. 

Mill, John Stuart. English em- 
piricist (1806-1873) and contrib- 
utor to inductive logic. He 
shared Berkeley's view of mai- 
ter but not of spirits or God; 
matter is “a permanent possi- 
bility of sensation.” His chief 
works are Logic and Uttlitari- 
anism. Vere ILA Vig 

Mind-Body Problem. See VI, 
10. 

Monism. In general, the theory 
that one principle or being will 
explain the plurality in the 
world. In epistemological m. 
that principle is the identity of 
idea and object. Quantitative 
metaphysical m. is the belief 
that the universe is one individ- 
ual (see pantheism). VI, 5. 
Qualitative metaphysical m. holds 
that all reality is of one kind or 
quality. VII, 6. 

The actual conduct of 


Morals. 
human individuals or societies. 
See ethics. 


pendent of its being known, 
preference for analytic method, 
and the metaphysical doctrine 
that reality is extra-mental. I, 


i TT}. Ti 4a One 
10;2. C3) VLG. 
Neutral. Used particularly of 


entities that are neither physical 
nor mental. 

Nietzsche, F. German _philoso- 
pher and man of letters (1844- 


LEXICON 


1900). Held that the develop- 
ment of a new and more power- 
ful type of person (superman) 
was the aim of life and 
bitterly attacked modern civiliza- 
tion and Christianity as he un- 
derstood it. His greatest work 
is Thus Spake Zarathustra. I, 
ZAd VAG. 

Nominalism. The doctrine of 
scholasticism that universals are 


Object. In medieval philosophy 
and later (about 1300-1750) o. 
meant the impression made by 
any entity on the mind. Since 
1750 (Kant and others), o. has 
meant any entity to which 
thought refers, anything thought 
about. The meanings of the 
terms objective and subjective 
have thus been reversed. O. does 
not have specific reference to a 
material o. II, 5. 


Pantheism. The belief that 
God is all reality. Contrasted 
with deism and theism. VII, 
6. 

Parallelism. Defined VI, to. 

Particular. A distinct member of 
a class, an individual. See con- 
cept, universal. ; 

Pascal, B. French religious phi- 
losopher and mathematician 
(1623-1662). His chief work, 
the Pensées (Thoughts), bases 
the defense of religion on “the 
heart,’ as opposed to reason, 
which is skeptical, and nature, 
which is ugly. 

Peirce, Charles §. American 
philosopher (1839-1914) who 
first formulated the principles of 
pragmatism. Several of his es- 
says have been edited by Cohen 
and published under the title 


389 


only names and not realities 
(“universalia sunt nomina”). 
See realism. V, 4. 

Normative. Having to do with 
norms, or standards of evalua- 
tion. 

Noumenon. The object as it is 
for true thought. Term used by 
Plato and Kant especially. An- 
tonym, phenomenon. III, 8. 


Objectivity. Now usually used 
in the sense of true reality, 
metaphysical validity. III, 8. 
Vier 

Organism. Defined VIII, 2. See 
mechanism. 

Otto, Rudolph. Contemporary 
German theologian and psychol- 
ogist of religion. Chief work, 
The Idea of the Holy (Das Hei- 


lige). X, 4, (2). 


Chance, Love, and Logic. II, 11. 
VIII, 5, (3). 

Perception. Either the apprehen- 
sion of sense-objects by the 
mind, or any intuition or imme- 
diate consciousness. 

Perry, Ralph Barton. American 
neo-realist and behaviorist (1876- 

). Chief work, Present Phil- 
osophical Tendencies. VI, 1. 
ViEa7 (2) andi to: 

Person. Defined VI, 9. 

Personalism. Theory that only 
persons are real; that all true 
being is personal. Formerly 
called spiritualism or personal 
wdeahsm. IV, 7. V, 5 and 14. 
VI, 9 and rx. VII, especially 
LOMAHIN user Ly 7: 

Phenomenon. The object as it 
appears to the senses. See nou- 
menon. 


390 


Physical Things. IV entire. 

Plato. Greek philosopher, (427- 
347 B.C, ) a DUD MOL) aoCrares 
and teacher of Aristotle. Taught 
that universals were objectively 
real Ideas. He thought of Ideas 
as true reality, while particulars 
or phenomena were dependent 
and relatively unreal. Other 
Ideas in the system or hierarchy 
are subordinated to the Jdea of 
the good. Plato contributed 
much to the understanding of 


moral, religious and_ esthetic 
values. He believed in immor- 
tality. Author of many dia- 
logues, notably the Phedo, 
Phedrus, Symposium and Re- 
public. I, 7 and 11 (4). IV, 6, 
(2). V, 4 and 5, (4), (b), and 
TSeeT Sand (25 av ee Loins 
(1), (a). 

Plotinus. Neo-Platonic mystic 


and pantheist (A. D. 204-270). 
For him, God is the fundamental 
reality, and the world an “ema- 
nation” from God. The supreme 
aim of life is the mystic ecstasy 
of union with God. His works 
were published by Porphyry in 
six “enneads” (groups of nine). 
Linas 

Pluralism. Theory that regards 


Rationalistic Method. 
Ty Ete 

Realism. Popularly and in litera- 
ture, the tendency to portray life 
as it is without idealization. In 
philosophy it has several mean- 
ings. Eptstemological r. is the 
doctrine that the object of 
knowledge is not dependent on 
its being known: this may be 
either momstic (III, 4) or dual- 
istic (III, 5 and 6). Epistemo- 
logical dualism is now being ad- 
vocated by the school of critical r. 
which opposes the monism of 


Defined 


LEXICON 


reality as many, either in quan- 
tity (VI, 5) or quality (VII, 
6). Antonym, monism or sin- 
gularism. 

Positivism. Theory, founded by 
Comte, that only objects of 
sense-experience are known and 
that metaphysics is impossible. 


TE):) 8. TTL. 32) VL ae 
andi3, (6). /Ak,~3 anda 
Practical. See XI, especially XI, 


PHD i wh 

Pragmatism. Philosophy found- 
ed by C. S. Peirce and James; 
teaches that truth is to be found 
by considering the practical con- 
sequences of ideas. IJ, 6 and II. 
III, 4. VI, 8 See Chicago 
School, Dewey, Insirumentalism. 

Proposition. A judgment ex- 
pressed in words. 

Pyrrho. Skeptic (about 360-270 
B. c.) of Elis. Held that in every 
argument both sides can be 
proved. Hence peace of mind is 
to be found only in suspension of 
judgment. 

Psychology. Variously defined as 
the science of consciousness and 


the science of behavior. See 
Vib ilaTT. ae gs 
Purpose. See VIII and IX, es- 


pecially IX, 5. 


neo-realism. In metaphysics r. 
may denote the scholastic doc- 
trine that universals are real (vs. 
nominalism) ; or any belief that 
reality is extra-mental (VII, 9); 
or the neo-realistic doctrine of 
neutral entities. 

Reality. The whole of actual be- 
ing, including existence, values, 
persons, and universals. It is the 
total object of true thought. 

Reason. In general, the process 
of thinking and drawing infer- 
ences. Used by Kant, Hegel, and 
others as the faculty of thought 


LEXICON 


about the unconditioned or abso- 
lute, thought about the totality 
of experience, synoptic thinking 
AR ge Be 

Regress, Infinite. VIII, 5, (5). 

Reify. Synonym of hypostatize, 

Religion. I, 9. V, 13. X, espe- 
cially X, 3. 

Romantic Method. Defined I, 11. 

Royce, Josiah. American idealist 
(1853-1916), influenced by He- 


Santayana, George. 
rary philosopher, essayist and 
poet (1863- ). Critical realist. 
Chief work, Scepticism and Ant- 
WHOL Eatin. V1, 10. LA, 2, (4s 

Schiller, F. C. S. English prag- 
matist or humanist (1864- ). 
EE tl. 3V 520; 

Scholasticism. A name for me- 
dieval philosophy in general; in 
particular, applied to the philos- 
ophy of St. Thomas Aquinas 
and his modern followers (neo- 
scholastics ). 

Schopenhauer, A. German pessi- 
mist (1788-1860), who believed 
that the universe is one will (the 
same in nature and in every 
man), a will to live, but without 
any rational purpose. He wrote 
The World as Will and Idea. 


Contempo- 


Dee 10 Ly 7, C2 be LA 
Science. See I, 8 
Scientific Method. Defined I, 11. 
Self. See person. 


Sensationalism. See empiricism. 
Singularism, Quantitative mon- 


ism. VI, 5. 

Skepticism. See III, 2 and 3. 
Ae 

Socrates. Great Greek moral phi- 


losopher (470-399 B. c.). Taught 
that knowledge is virtue and vir- 
tue happiness. Used method of 
questioning called Socratic meth- 
od. Teacher of Plato. 


Solipsism. From Latin “solus” 


391 


gel. Chief work, The World 
and the Individual. I, 11, (4). 
LP ries oii Vv, Sa) Co) and 


TMC AY WL Pak. 
Russell, B. British mathemati- 
cian and philosopher (1872- 


). Conspicuous neo-realist. 
Writes also on social themes. 


LIU AVS ae Game eV LL TO: 
IX, 2, (4). 
and ‘“ipse.’ The belief that 


“myself alone” exists; that all 
objects and persons around me 
are only my ideas, like dream 
things and persons. A view not 
held by any serious thinker, but 
often described as one of the pos- 
sibilities. II, 2. 

Sorley, W. R. Contemporary 
English idealist and personalist, 
at Cambridge University. Chief 
work, Moral Values and the Idea 
Of GOG. Ly TES UA sa era Go ws 
Gor CSV renVs Ono wat. tae 

Soul. Defined VI, 4 and 5. 

Space. See III, 9. VIII, 5. 

Spaulding, Edward Gleason. 
American neo-realist  (1873- 

). Teaches at Princeton 
University, "ly 6" and 11, ca). 
Viti (2) wane Cane 

Spengler, O. Contemporary Ger- 

man writer on the philosophy of 


civilization. Chief work, Der 
Untergang des  Abendlandes. 
beg Eile 


Spinoza, Benedict. A rationalist 
(1632-1677), of Jewish race. 
Lived and died in Holland. He 
held that the universe is one sub- 
stance, which he called nature or 
God, of which, out of its infinite 
attributes, two are known to us. 


His great masterpiece is the 
Ethie. hi Bio, Fa 02) andl 3) 
(1) sR) 4). 

Spirit. Synonym of person. 


392 


Stern, L. William. Contemporary 
German personalist (187I-  ). 
VIL IO M2) Re LAAT), 

Subject. Formerly meant what 
object now means. Now usually 
used to mean self as knowing. 

Subjective. Pertaining to the sub- 
ject. Often used to denote what 
exists in consciousness but is not 
true of objects beyond conscious- 


ness. Feeling is often spoken of 
as S. 
Subconscious. See VI, 9, (3). 


Teleology. Defined VIII, 1. See 
V LLiwiec) Lt -7. Anton yin, 
mechanism. 

Term. Any word or group of 
words which can serve as sub- 
ject or predicate of a proposi- 
tion. 

Theism. Belief in a personal God, 
other than all created beings (vs. 
pantheism), who is nevertheless 
immanent in those beings. X, 5 
and 6. 

Thesis. 
Hegel. 

Things. 

Tradition. 

Thomas 
monk, 
pher, the 
Correlated 


See dialectic, antimony, 
Antonym, antithesis. 

IV entire. 

See II, 5. 

Aquinas. Dominican 
theologian and_ philoso- 
greatest scholastic. 
the philosophy of 


Ultimate. That which cannot be 
further analyzed or explained; 
that which is presupposed by all 
explanation. 


Vaihinger, H. German Kant- 
scholar and exponent of “Phi- 
losophy of ‘As If?” (1852- VY 
Founder of journal, Annalen der 


LEXICON 


Subsistence. Validity. VII, 6. 

Substance. Underlying or funda- 
mental reality; that which has 
attributes, properties, accidents, 
or qualities. 

Syllogism. Judgments so related 
that an inference may be drawn 
from them. Discovered by Aris- 
totle. 

Symbolic Logic. 
tcal logic. 

Synopsis. 


See mathemat- 


I, it) Tilo ae 


Aristotle with the system of 
Christian doctrine. 

Thought. The process of relating 
judgments so as to solve a prob- 
lem logically; or the judgment 
which is a result of such a proc- 
ess. 


Time. See VIII, 5, (7). 

Timon. Of Phlius. Greek skep- 
tic (320-230 B. C.). 

Transcendent. Other than, out- 


side of, not a part of. A t. God 
is other than the world; a t. 
soul, other than consciousness; a 
t. object (Kant) other than pos- 
sible experience. X, 5 and 6. 
Antonym, immanent. 


Truth. II, 2. Criterion of t, HI, 
3-12. 
Universal. See V, 1-5 and con- 


cept. 


Philosophie. II, 11. VII, 7, 
(2). (MIL tro co xS ata 
Valid. Possessing either formal 


or material truth. 


LEXICON 393 


Valuation. The psychological proc- Value. See V, 2 and 3 and 6-14. 
ess of attributing value to an VIEC7. 1 sito, a tH, 
object. See evaluation. Vitalism. Defined IX, 2, (1). 

See teleology and mechanism. 


W 
Ward, J. English psychologist Whitehead, A. N. Contemporary 
and philosopher (1843- Nie English physicist, mathematician 
Pluralistic personalist, influenced and philosopher. Author, The 


by Letbniz. Chief work, Natu- Concept of Nature. 
ralism and Agnosticism. V, 5, Wolff, Christian. German (1679- 


Peavy oneal: to VLE S) (1). 1754) ; follower of Leibniz. IV, 
IX, 6. Ve 


x 


Xenophanes. Of Kolophon (about in the unity of God and in at- 
565 B. c.). Called the “theologi- tacking contemporary anthropo- 
cal Eleatic.” Chiefly interested morphism. 








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BD21 .B85 
An introduction to philosophy 


Princeton Theological Seminary—Speer Library 


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1 1012 00103 2889 


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